"Oh, there you are, my ambitious young friend!" said the duke, as he saw him come in.
"My only ambition has been to do my best to second your efforts, Monseigneur," said Gabriel.
"Oh, from that point of view you have shown no ambition at all," rejoined Le Balafré (we may henceforth give the duke that name, or, more properly speaking, that title). "I call you ambitious, Gabriel," he continued playfully, "because of the innumerable extravagant requests you have made upon me; and upon my word I am not sure that I can satisfy you."
"I based them rather upon what I knew of your benevolence than upon my own poor merits," said Gabriel.
"You have a very high opinion of my benevolence, then," said the Duc de Guise, with mild raillery. "I leave it to you, Monsieur de Vaudemont," he continued, turning to a gentleman seated beside his bed, who had just come to visit him,—"I leave it to you to say if any one should be allowed to present such paltry requests to a prince."
"Consider that I erred in what I said, then, Monseigneur," Gabriel responded, "and that I based my requests upon my own merits and not upon your benevolence."
"Another blunder!" cried the duke; "for your gallantry is a hundred times beyond my power to recompense. Now just listen for a moment, Monsieur de Vaudemont, and let me tell you of the unprecedented favors which Monsieur d'Exmès asks at my hands."
"I venture to predict, Monseigneur," said the Marquis de Vaudemont, "that they are sure to be absurdly small, both in proportion to his merit and your power. However, let me hear them."
"In the first place," continued the duke, "Monsieur d'Exmès asks me to take back to Paris with me the little band of volunteers whom he enlisted at his own expense and for his own purpose, but meanwhile to make such use as I please of them. He reserves only four men to serve as his own suite on his journey to Paris. And these brave fellows, whom he thus lends to me under pretense of recommending them to me, are no others, Monsieur de Vaudemont, than the incarnate fiends who accompanied him in that marvellous escalading expedition which ended in the capture of the impregnable Risbank fort. Well, which of us renders the other a service in this transaction, Monsieur d'Exmès or myself?"
"I must confess that Monsieur d'Exmès does," said the Marquis de Vaudemont.