"What! a laurel twig among your flowers, Baroness?" said he. "Excellent! for Fame herself is not a goddess more suited to distribute favours. Do I not in you Madame, see again Daphne, the friend of Apollo, who turned into that tree?" and, smiling atrociously over his classical sweet speech, he looked at Lecour.
"The insolence!" thought Germain, who also took it as a good opportunity to begin his rôle. "Well, sir," he exclaimed sharply, "talking of Apollo, did you ever hear that this god flayed one Marsyas for presumption?"
Cyrène flashed him a surprised and grateful glance.
"I have heard, sir," replied Jude, "that the Princess de Poix desires me to find and conduct to her Madame the Baroness de la Roche Vernay."
So saying, he carried off Cyrène again, like some black piratical cruiser, and she reluctantly accompanied him, looking back regretfully over her shoulder.
Lecour could not understand the eternal use of the formal orders of the Princess. He watched the two in a vexed stupor until they disappeared. Then he recalled the inanity and exacting requests of the great lady, and guessed how her reader was able to so boldly play his annoying trick.
Just then Grancey laid his hand on Germain's shoulder. There was so much friendship in the face of the golden-haired Life Guard that Lecour at once raised the question uppermost in his mind.
"Baron," said he, "tell me, who is Madame de la Roche Vernay?"
Grancey's eyes twinkled intelligently.
"It is an affair, then? I can keep secrets."