“I thank you, Archambault, not only for the present but for the old times,” Péron replied smiling, though he wondered what had brought the fat pastry cook up all those steps for so flippant an errand.
“You are welcome enough, M. Jehan,” Archambault said; “but give me a chair, I am marvellously short of breath of late, and I hurried, having something of weight to say.”
When he was seated he clasped his fat little hands on his knee and waited placidly while his host lighted another taper and closed the shutters on the street. When Péron sat down at last, his guest was smiling and complacent, the same round little man who for forty years had catered for and flattered the wealthy coterie of the Marais, and was one of the most famous cooks of Paris. It was said, in the next reign, that Vatel learned his trade from him, as he had learned it of Zamet. His dress was far richer than the young nobleman’s. Péron wore the uniform of monsignor’s guards; the cook wore a suit of black velvet with ruffles of Flemish lace, a chain of gold around his neck, buckles that were gemmed with jewels at his knees and on his shoes. He cast a glance not unseasoned with pity at the bare room.
“Mon Dieu!” he said, “what a place for a marquis.”
The exclamation was so genuine and involuntary that Péron laughed outright.
“My tastes are more simple than yours, Archambault,” he said.
The pastry cook shrugged his shoulders.
“It makes my heart ache, M. Jehan,” he replied heartily, “for I remember who you are and what is your due. But ’tis the vulgar who gain nowadays; monsignor has no love for the grandees. However, that is not here nor there; I came for another matter. You have lost a ring?”
Péron looked at him in amazement.
“By St. Denis!” he said, “there is witchcraft in it. Yes, I have lost a ring. What more?”