"Tell Monsieur le Comte for me that I am sleeping and may not be disturbed!"
Mockery! And yet this same father had taken up the sword to drive it through a man who had laughed. Only God knew; for neither the son understood the father nor the father the son. Well, so be it. He was now without weight upon his shoulders; he was conscience free; he had paid his obligations, obligations far beyond his allotted part. It was inevitable that their paths should separate. There had been too many words; there was still too much pride.
"Tell Monsieur le Comte for me that I am sleeping and may not be disturbed!"
He had stood there in the corridor and writhed as this blade entered his soul and turned and turned. Rage and chagrin had choked him, leaving him utterly speechless. So be it. Forevermore it was to be the house divided. … It was after two o'clock when the Chevalier went back to his bed. The poet was in slumber, and his face looked careworn in repose.
"Poor lad! He is not happy, either. Only the clod knows content as a recompense for his poverty. Good night, Madame; to-morrow, to-morrow, and we shall see!"
And the morrow came, the rarest gem in all the diadem of days. There was a ripple on the water; a cloudless sky; fields of corn waving their tasseled heads and the broad leaf of the tobacco plant trembling, trembling.
"What!" cried Victor in surprise; "you have a new feather in your hat?"
"Faith, lad," said the Chevalier, "the old plume was a shabby one. But I have not destroyed it; too many fond remembrances cling to it. How often have I doffed that plume at court, in the gardens, on the balconies and on the king's highways! And who would suspect, to look at it now, that it had ever dusted the mosaics at the Vatican? And there have been times when I flung it on the green behind the Luxembourg, my doublet beside it."
"Ah, yes; we used to have an occasional affair." And Victor nodded as one who knew the phrase. "But a new feather here? Who will notice it? Pray, glance at this suit of mine! I give it one month's service, and then the Indian's clout. I can't wear those skins. Pah!"
"Examine this feather," the Chevalier requested.