Oliver stood like one stunned. He made no answer, but his mind, in a single sweep, cleared the whole horizon. To Paris! He remembered the master's commands--those commands so terribly absolute; he remembered his threats of punishment if he (Oliver) should disobey that mandate. What was that threat? Oliver remembered it well. It was that that terrible mysterious being, who had so nearly doomed him to a dreadful, unspeakable death, would crush him, would annihilate him, would make him wish a thousand times, in his torments, that he had never been born. Those were almost the very words, and Oliver had not forgotten them. He had learned much of his master in the year that he had lived with him, and he knew that that threat was not idle. He knew that the master would do as he said to the last jot and tittle. That cool, smiling, sinister devil! He could destroy all of this happiness as easily as one can destroy a beautiful soap-bubble that a child has created from nothing. "I do not wish to go to Paris," said Oliver, huskily. The marquis's face darkened. "Not wish to go to Paris?" he repeated. "But you must go, Oliver." "No," said Oliver; "I do not wish to go. I shall not go. I would rather stay here at Flourens. I do not like Paris." The marquis came over and took Oliver by the button of his coat. His face was not pleasant to see. "You do not like Paris!" said he. "Very well; then you shall stay here, my dear Oliver--you and your fortune. But in that case, my child, you need never come here to the château again. You comprehend me?" Oliver looked out of the window. Céleste was waiting for him upon the terrace. Never had she looked so exquisitely beautiful. He groaned. "Then I will go," said he. The marquis opened his arms. "Embrace me, Oliver," he cried. Oliver yielded himself to the caress, but he wished the marquis to the devil. ACT III.--PARIS. SCENE FIRST.--_Madame de Pompadour's salon._ Some dozen courtiers, male and female, are gathered in a group at a little distance, but not too far away, from a sofa standing by an open window, just where the breeze comes in pleasantly from without. A lady dressed in negligee _robe de chambre_ of blue satin lies upon the sofa, propped up with pillows. She is slowly fanning herself with a very charmingly painted fan, listening the while impassively to the subdued talk, and the occasional ripple of laughter that follows some more than usually apt observation or repartee. She does not talk or smile herself, but only continues fanning herself with slow impassiveness. She is still beautiful, but she is somewhat haggard and worn, and even the powder and rouge, and an occasional patch here and there, cannot altogether hide the leaden pallor of ill health. It is Madame de Pompadour, and it is one of the days in which she feels more than usually unwell.