"We never guess your enigmas. Go on."
"She has need to look brave."
"She is about to marry Monsieur de Sillon," said Cyrène. "Perhaps that explains any unusual expression."
"Ah, Monsieur de Sillon—yes, Mademoiselle, Monsieur de Sillon—but, ladies, do you know there is no Monsieur de Sillon?"
"No Monsieur de Sillon?"
"Is Monsieur dead?" gasped Cyrène, her hand darting to her breast.
"Monsieur de Sillon will never die, Mademoiselle. It is a maxim of the philosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist. What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himself into that colonelship of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scattered those broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, and boasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, this Monsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right of his four centuries of noblesse, whose coat bore no less than eighteen fine quarterings, whose crest was an eagle and his betrothed a Merecour, is the son of a tanner of Tours."
"Incredible!"
"Impossible!"
"You fable exquisitely!"