"Bah! he won't come; he has probably remained with his infanta. She is a very pretty girl, that Herminie!"
"But I tell you, messieurs, that Montrevert will come; he cannot stay at his petite maison, for he must be in Paris to-morrow for the king's lever. He has hopes of being admitted to the company of Gray Mousquetaires, which his majesty has just organized; it is a bodyguard that is to attend him everywhere, even to the hunt.—Vive Dieu! messieurs, but it is a fine corps! Such a coquettish uniform—red, trimmed with gold. Ah! what conquests those fellows will make with that uniform!"
"Look you, I too have some hope of entering this corps of mousquetaires," said the young Marquis de Sénange, trying to straighten up and maintain a sitting posture on the grass. "I too ought to be at the king's lever to-morrow—or rather, this morning. But I think that I shall not be there! I am too dizzy—deuce take it! Youth is the age of folly and pleasure.—Ah! I wish I could find someone who would sit back to back with me; we would support each other.—Monclair, sit behind me."
"No; I am very comfortable, I refuse to stir."
"What a selfish beast that little Monclair is!—Come, La Valteline, and you, Beausseilly—come and sit down with us."
The two young men who were still standing decided to seat themselves on the grass near their companions. But he who was called La Valteline turned toward Léodgard and shouted:
"Well! Comte de Marvejols, aren't you going to join us? What the deuce are you doing there, all alone, with your eyes fixed on the sky? are you going into astrology? Beware! you know that a commission is sitting at the Arsenal, in the Poison Chamber, for the express purpose of trying persons accused of magic! And astrologers are very closely related to sorcerers!"
"Messieurs," said the Sire de Beausseilly, lowering his voice, "poor Léodgard is in no laughing mood, and you must understand why: he was very unlucky at cards to-night, he lost all that he possessed to Montrevert, and, I believe, a hundred pistoles more on credit."
"He is always unlucky with Montrevert, he ought never to play with him; for that charming petite maison where we supped, which is decorated so suggestively, used to belong to Marvejols; he staked it against heaven knows what sum with Montrevert! And now that delicious resort no longer belongs to him! To be sure, Montrevert often invites him there."
"If he does it in order to win his money, as he has done to-night, it is not very amusing for Léodgard. I have noticed that fortune has been very adverse to him for some time past. He always loses, poor fellow!"