"At eight, Monsieur. They are due this moment, unless they have failed to make the harbor."
"And they bring the savage? Good. He will interest me, and I am dying of weariness. I shall see a man again. Arrange some chairs next to me, bring a bottle of claret, and a thousand livres from the steward's chest. And listen, Jehan, let Monsieur le Comte's servant give orders to the butler for his master. I forbid you to do it."
"Yes, Monsieur," and Jehan proceeded to light the chandelier, the illumination of which brought out distinctly the tarnished splendor of the salon. Jehan retired.
The marquis, to steady his teetering head, rested his chin on his hands, which were clasped over the top of his walking-stick. Occasionally his eyes roved to the portrait of his wife, and a melancholy, unreadable smile broke the severe line of his lips.
"A beautiful woman," he mused aloud, "though she did not inspire me with love. Beauty: that is the true religion, that is the shrine of worship, as the Greeks understood it; beauty of woman. Woman was born to express beauty, man to express strength. We detest weakness in a man, and a homely woman is a crime. And so De Brissac passed violently? And his oaths of vengeance were breaths on a mirror. Ah well, I had ceased to hate him these twenty years. Did he love yonder woman, or was his fancy like mine, ephemeral? And he married Mademoiselle de Montbazon? That is droll, a kind of tentative vengeance."
His eyes closed and he fell into a dreaming state. Like all men who have known eventful but useless lives, the marquis lived in the past. The future held for him nothing cut pain and death, and his thought seldom went forth to meet it. Day after day he sat alone with his souvenirs, unmindful of the progress about him, indifferent.
When the valet returned with the wine and the livres, he placed three chairs within easy distance of the marquis, and waited to learn what further orders his master had in mind.
The marquis opened his eyes. "When Messieurs the Jesuits come, show them in at once. The hypocrites come on a begging errand. After I have humiliated them, I shall give them money, and they will say, 'Absolvo te.' It is simple. And they will promise to pray for the repose of my soul when I am dead. My faith, how easy it is to gain Heaven! A thousand livres, a prayer mumbled in Latin, and look! Heaven is for the going. The thief and the murderer, the fool and the wise man, the rich and the beggared, how they must jostle one another in the matter of precedence! Poor Lucifer! Who will lend Lucifer a thousand livres and an 'Absolvo te'?"
Jehan crossed himself, for he was a pious Catholic.
"Hypocrite!" snarled the marquis; "Have I not forbidden you this mummery in my presence? Begone!"