The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking down from a great height upon another. The Vicomte smiled quietly to himself as he combed his fair beard with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even Roxalanne—who had sat silently listening to a conversation that she was at times mercifully spared from following too minutely—flashed me a humorous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone who in common with women of her type was of a singular obtuseness—was the situation without significance.
Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my delicate imputation, and to show how well acquainted he was with Bardelys, plunged at once into a thousand details of that gentleman's magnificence. He described his suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his houses, his chateaux, his favour with the King, his successes with the fair sex, and I know not what besides—in all of which I confess that even to me there was a certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened with an air of amusement that showed how well she read him. Later, when I found myself alone with her by the river, whither we had gone after the repast and the Chevalier's reminiscences were at an end, she reverted to that conversation.
“Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur,” she asked.
“Surely you know your cousin better than I,” I answered cautiously. “Why question me upon his character?”
“I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He spent a fortnight in Paris once, and he accounts himself, or would have us account him, intimate with every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very amusing, this good cousin, but tiresome too.” She laughed, and there was the faintest note of scorn in her amusement. “Now, touching this Marquis de Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted when he said that they were as brothers—he and the Marquis—is it not? He grew ill at ease when you reminded him of the possibility of the Marquis's visit to Lavedan.” And she laughed quaintly to herself. “Do you think that he so much as knows Bardelys?” she asked me suddenly.
“Not so much as by sight,” I answered. “He is full of information concerning that unworthy gentleman, but it is only information that the meanest scullion in Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate.”
“Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you of the same opinion as my father?”
“Aye, and with better cause.”
“You know him well?”
“Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A worn-out libertine; a sneering, cynical misogynist; a nauseated reveller; a hateful egotist. There is no more unworthy person, I'll swear, in all France. Peste! The very memory of the fellow makes me sick. Let us talk of other things.”