The miracle was that what he put upon me fitted me. I became transformed like my servant and my secretary, and stood astonished at the result.
VI
"Enter the prince of a fairy tale," said the Marquis du Plessy when the lackey ushered me into the garden.
It was a nest of amber at that time of sunset, and he waited for me at a table laid for supper, under a flat canopy of trees which had their tops trained and woven into a mat.
I took his hand to kiss, but he rose up and magnificently placed me in a chair opposite himself.
"Your benefits are heavy, monsieur," I said. "How shall I acknowledge them?"
"You owe me nothing at all," he answered; "as you will see when I have told you a true story. It would sound like a lie if anything were incredible in these fabulous times."
"But you do not know anything about me."
"I am well instructed in your history, by that charming attendant in fringed leather breeches, who has been acquainted with you much longer than you have been acquainted with yourself."