Jehan hurried away, nearly overcome by surprise.
"A toast!" said the Vicomte d'Halluys: "the Chevalier's return to Paris and to favor!"
The roisterers filled their glasses. "To Paris, Chevalier, to court!"
"To the beautiful unknown," whispered the poet into his friend's ear.
"Thanks, Messieurs," said the Chevalier. "Paris!" and a thousand flashes of candle-light darted from the brimming glasses.
The scene was not without its picturesqueness. The low crockery shelves of polished mahogany running the length of the room and filled with rare porcelain, costly Italian glass, medieval silver, antique flagons, loving-cups of gold inlaid with amber and garnets; a dazzling array of candlesticks; a fireplace of shining mosaics; the mahogany table littered with broken glass, full and empty bottles, broken pipes, pools of overturned wine, shredded playing cards, cracked dice, and dead candles; somber-toned pictures and rusted armor lining the walls; the brilliant uniforms of the officers from Fort Louis, the laces and satins of the civilians; the flushed faces, some handsome, some sodden, some made hideous by the chisel and mallet of vice: all these produced a scene at once attractive and repelling.
"Vicomte," said the Chevalier, "we are all drunk. Let us see if there be steady hands among us. I make you a wager."
"On what?"
"There are eight candles on your side of the table, eight on mine. I will undertake to snuff mine in less time than it takes you to snuff yours. Say fifty pistoles to make it interesting."
"Done!" said the vicomte.