When at last the old servant announced that dinner was ready, the two young men took their places opposite to each other at table, and Vallombreuse, who was in the gayest, most jovial mood, attacked the viands with an eagerness and ferocity immensely diverting to his host. After devouring almost the whole of a chicken, which, it is true, seemed to have died of a consumption, there was so little flesh on its bones, he fell back upon the tempting, rosy slices of the delicate Bayonne ham, and then passed to the _pâté_ of ducks’ livers, which he declared to be supremely delicious, exquisite, ambrosial—food fit for the gods; and he found the sharp cheese, made of goat’s milk, which followed, an excellent relish. He praised the wine, too—which was really very old and fine and drank it with great gusto, out of his delicate Venetian wine-glass. Once, when he caught sight of Pierre’s bewildered, terrified look, as he heard his master address his merry guest as the Duke of Vallombreuse—who ought to be dead, if he was not—he fairly roared with laughter, and was as full of fun and frolic as a school-boy out for a holiday; Meantime de Sigognac, whilst he endeavoured to play the attentive host, and to respond as well as he could to the young duke’s lively sallies, could not recover from his surprise at seeing him sitting there opposite to himself, as a guest at his own table—making himself very much at home, too, in the most charming, genial, easy way imaginable—and yet he was the haughty, overbearing, insolent young nobleman, who had been his hated rival; whom he had twice encountered and defeated, in fierce combat, and who had several times tried to compass his death by means of hired ruffians. What could be the explanation of it all?