"It hurts me more than I care to let anybody but you know, Lazarre. If I hadn't received that letter I should have avoided you. I wish you had saved Paul. I would adopt him."
"I think not, my dear count."
"Nonsense, boy! I wouldn't let you have him."
"You have a child."
"Her husband has her. But let us not pitch and toss words. No use quarreling over a dead boy. What right have you to Eagle's child?"
"Not your right of faithful useful friendship. Only my own right."
"What's that?"
"Nothing that she ever admitted."
"I was afraid of you," said De Chaumont, "when you flowered out with old Du Plessy, like an heir lost in emigration and found again. You were a startling fellow, dropping on the Faubourg; and anything was possible under the Empire. You know I never believed the dauphin nonsense, but a few who remembered, said you looked like the king. You were the king to her; above mating with the best of the old nobility. She wouldn't have married you."
"Did she ever give you reason to think she would marry you?"