“I am as hungry as a wolf.”
“Then sit you down and eat, and not until you have supped shall you read a single line of love.”
Gaston, very sulky, sat down. Count Saxe and the rest of us laughed at him. Gaston still sulked, but managed to eat a good supper, and drink his share of wine. He did not smile until near the end. Count Saxe, raising his glass, drank to a pair of bright eyes in Brabant, at which the young man chose to smile; and after drinking the toast was suffered to depart with his treasure.
Count Saxe not needing my services, I presently went to Gaston’s room. He was seated at a rude table, with a single candle on it, devouring Francezka’s letter. He put it in his breast when I entered.
“Now,” he cried, joyfully, “tell me all about her—every word, every look of hers while you were with her. And she writes me that she has confided all to you.”
“She did—and whenever I called her Madame Cheverny, a smile like the morning shone upon her face.”
His face, too, was glowing, and he said:
“You see, there was nothing to be done but that we should be married. We had, so to speak, no choice.”
To this I answered: