She had no suspicion of my trouble, my misery, or that the last question almost filled the cup too full. Hitherto all had been easy, but this seemed to choke me. I stammered and lost my voice. Mademoiselle, her head bowed, was gazing into the fire. Fanchette was staring at me, her black eyes round as saucers, her mouth half-open. ‘Well, madame,’ I muttered at length, ‘to tell you the truth, at present, you must understand, I have been forced to--’ ‘What, Gaston?’ Madame de Bonne half rose in bed. Her voice was sharp with disappointment and apprehension; the grasp of her fingers on my hand grew closer. I could not resist that appeal. I flung away the last rag of shame. ‘To reduce my establishment somewhat,’ I answered, looking a miserable defiance at mademoiselle’s averted figure. She had called me a liar and a cheat--here in the room! I must stand before her a liar and a cheat confessed. ‘I keep but three lackeys now, madame.’ Still it is creditable,’ my mother muttered thoughtfully, her eyes shining. ‘Your dress, however, Gaston--only my eyes are weak--seems to me--’ ‘Tut, tut! It is but a disguise,’ I answered quickly. ‘I might have known that,’ she rejoined, sinking back with a smile and a sigh of content. ‘But when I first saw you I was almost afraid that something had happened to you. And I have been uneasy lately,’ she went on, releasing my hand, and beginning to play with the coverlet, as though the remembrance troubled her. ‘There was a man here a while ago--a friend of Simon Fleix there--who had been south to Pau and Nerac, and he said there was no M. de Marsac about the Court.’ ‘He probably knew less of the Court than the wine-tavern,’ I answered with a ghastly smile. ‘That was just what I told him,’ my mother responded quickly and eagerly. ‘I warrant you I sent him away ill-satisfied.’ ‘Of course,’ I said; ‘there will always be people of that kind. But now, if you will permit me, madame, I will make such arrangements for mademoiselle as are necessary.’