"Yes. I so spoke. Is, then, such a charge vacant now?" De Brissac's tone being still cold and distant as he spoke.
"There is, and if he who would purchase such a charge is sufficiently high in rank, if the King will permit him to buy it, he may buy mine. My charge of the guards. That of Grand Veneur cannot be sold."
"Yours!" De Brissac said, and now he took a step back from where he stood as a man steps back when utterly astonished at what he hears. "Yours!"
"Yes, mine. I--I am not well in health. And--I have other calls on me."
For a moment De Brissac said nothing but stood looking at his superior strangely. Then he said:--
"The person of whom I spoke holds so high a position that the King would not oppose him in his desires. Only----"
"Only!"
"He will not buy your charge."
"What!" De Beaurepaire exclaimed, while, with a sneer, he added, "is he so high that even it is too low for him. Cadédis! he must be high indeed." Then, rapping the table irritably, he said, "Come, Monsieur de Brissac, explain yourself. Who is this man, and why should my charge be the one he will not buy?"
Still with a strange look in his eyes and with that little nest of wrinkles on either side of his face very apparent, De Brissac glanced out through the window and saw that his men were all engaged at their various occupations; some fetching water from the spring for their horses, some attending to their animals and rubbing them down, and some cleaning and polishing their accoutrements. After having done which he came nearer to De Beaurepaire than he had been before, and said:--