‘Sir,’ he said, in a small and lisping voice, ‘you trod on my toe.’ Though I had not done so, I begged his pardon very politely. But as his only acknowledgment of this courtesy consisted in an attempt to get his knee in front of mine--we were mounting very slowly, the stairs being cumbered with a multitude of servants, who stood on either hand--I did tread on his toe, with a force and directness which made him cry out. ‘What is the matter?’ Rambouillet asked, looking back hastily. ‘Nothing, M. le Marquis,’ I answered, pressing on steadfastly. ‘Sir,’ my young friend said again, in the same lisping voice, ‘you trod on my toe.’ ‘I believe I did, sir,’ I answered. ‘You have not yet apologised,’ he murmured gently in my ear. ‘Nay, there you are wrong,’ I rejoined bluntly, ‘for it is always my habit to apologise first and tread afterwards.’ He smiled as at a pleasant joke; and I am bound to say that his bearing was so admirable that if he had been my son I could have hugged him. ‘Good!’ he answered. ‘No doubt your sword is as sharp as your wits, sir. I see,’ he continued, glancing naively at my old scabbard--he was himself the very gem of a courtier, a slender youth with a pink-and-white complexion, a dark line for a moustache, and a pearl-drop in his ear--‘it is longing to be out. Perhaps you will take a turn in the tennis-court to-morrow?’ ‘With pleasure, sir,’ I answered, ‘if you have a father, or your elder brother is grown up.’ What answer he would have made to this gibe I do not know, for at that moment we reached the door of the ante-chamber; and this being narrow, and a sentry in the grey uniform of the Swiss Guard compelling all to enter in single file, my young friend was forced to fall back, leaving me free to enter alone, and admire at my leisure a scene at once brilliant and sombre.