“Yes; but as I do not feel that I have, as yet, become sufficiently a patriarch,” rejoined Emanuel, passing before the baron to show him the way to the apartment which had been prepared for him, “to spend my days in such formidable society, I hope, baron, that you have thought of the means by which I can withdraw from it?” “Undoubtedly, my dear count,” said Lectoure, following him. “I wished even to have been myself the bearer of your commission, as my wedding gift to you. I knew of a vacancy in the queen’s dragoon’s, and called yesterday on M. de Maurepas to solicit it for you, when I heard that it had been granted, at the request of I know not what mysterious admiral, a sort of corsair, pirate, or fantastic being, whom the queen has made the fashion by giving him her hand to kiss, and whom the king has taken a great affection to because he beat the English, I know not where--so that his majesty has conferred upon him the order of military merit, and presented him a sword with a gold hilt, just as he would have done to one of the nobility. In short, the game is lost on that side, but do not be alarmed, we will turn round to another.” “Very well,” replied Emanuel, “I care not what regiment it may be in; what I desire is, that it should be a rank suitable to my name, and a position which would be becoming to our wealth.” “Precisely--you shall have them.” “But how,” said Emanuel, wishing to change the subject of conversation, “how did you manage to get rid of the thousand engagements you must have had on your hands.” “Why,” said the baron, with that perfectly free and easy air, which belonged only to that distinguished class, and stretching himself upon a couch, for they had at length reached the apartment destined for him, “why, by frankly stating the fact to them. I announced at the queen’s card table, I was going to be married.” “Oh! good heaven! Why, this was perfect heroism! Above all, if you acknowledged you were about to seek a wife in the depths of Lower Brittany.” “I did acknowledge it.” “And then,” said Emanuel, smiling, “compassion stifled every angry feeling.” “Gad! you will readily comprehend, my dear count,” said Lectoure, putting one knee over the other and, balancing his leg with a motion as regular as that of a pendulum, “our women of the court believe that the sun rises at Paris, and sets at Versailles--all the rest of France, is, in their idea, a Lapland, Greenland, Nova Zembla! So that they expect, as you have hinted, my dear count, to see me bring back with me from my voyage to the pole some large hands, and formidable feet! Fortunately, they are mistaken,” he added, with an accent half timorous, half interrogatory; “is it not so, Emanuel? for you told me that your sister”---- “You will see her,” replied Emanuel. “It will be a dreadful disappointment to that poor Madame de Chaulne--it cannot be helped--and she must console herself. What is it?”