D'Alvimar was a connoisseur, and beautiful music possessed the power of making his natural melancholy less bitter than usual. He abandoned himself the more readily to this sort of relief, because his mind was set at rest when he discovered that this silent and watchful individual, whom he had taken at first for an insinuating spy, was an accomplished and harmless musician. As for the marquis, he loved the art and the artist, and he always listened to his _master sourdelinier_ with religious emotion. D'Alvimar expressed his admiration in well-chosen terms. Whereupon, the supper being at an end, he asked leave to retire. The marquis rose at once, motioned to Master Jovelin to await his return and to the page to take a light, and himself escorted his guest to the room that had been prepared for him; after which he returned to the table, removed his hat, which, in those days, was a sign that ceremony was dispensed with, contrary to the usage introduced at a later date, ordered a sort of punch called _clairette_, compounded of white wine, honey, musk, saffron and cloves, and invited Master Jovelin to sit opposite him in the place D'Alvimar had just vacated. "Now, Messire Clindor," said the marquis, smiling good-humoredly at the page, whom, in accordance with his usual custom, he had burdened with a name taken from _Astrée_, "you may go to sup with Bellinde. Leave us, and tell her to take care of you.--Stay," he added, as the page was about to leave the room, "I have been intending all day to reprove you for your manner of walking. I have noticed, my young friend, that you have adopted some habits which you may think are military, but which are simply vulgar. Do not forget, therefore, that, although you are not noble, you are in a way to become so, and that a well-mannered little bourgeois in the service of a man of quality is on the road to the acquisition of a little fief of which he may assume the name. But what will it avail you that I assist you to rub the dirt off your birth, if you persist in befouling your manners? Try to be a gentleman, monsieur, not a peasant. Now then, adopt an easy carriage, try to put your whole foot on the floor when you walk, and not begin your step with the heel and end on the great toe; a trick which makes your gait and the clatter of your shoes resemble the amble of a millers horse. Go now in peace, eat well and sleep well, or else beware of the stirrup-leathers!" Little Clindor, whose real name was Jean Fachot--his father was an apothecary at Saint-Amand,--received the sermon of his lord and master with great respect, saluted and left the room on tiptoe, like a ballet-dancer, to make it perfectly evident that he could not touch his heels first, since he did not touch them at all. The old servant, who always remained to the last, having gone likewise to his supper, the marquis said to his _sourdelinier_: