Adamas knew her to be quite capable of playing the spy. But he concluded that he was mistaken, and barricaded all the doors when there was nothing to be heard save the loud snoring of the marquis and the muffled yelping of little Fleurial, who lay at the foot of the bed dreaming of a certain black cat, which was to him what Bellinde was to Adamas. XIX They arrived at La Motte-Seuilly about nine o'clock the next morning. The reader has not forgotten that in those days dinner was served at ten in the morning, supper at six in the evening. On this occasion our marquis, who was fully determined to open his matrimonial projects, had deemed it best to use some lighter and less cumbersome means of locomotion than his magnificent lumbering chariot. He had mounted, not without a mighty effort, his pretty Andalusian steed, called _Rosidor_--another name from _Astrée_,--an excellent beast with an easy gait and placid disposition, a little mischievous, as it was fitting that he should be in order to give his rider a chance to shine--that is to say, ready at the slightest sign with leg or hand, to roll his eyes savagely, curvet, dilate his nostrils like a wicked devil, rear to a respectable height, and, in a word, assume the airs of a bad-tempered brute. "For all that, the best fellow in the world." As he dismounted, the marquis ordered Clindor to lead his horse around the courtyard for a quarter of an hour, on the pretext that he was too warm to be taken to the stable at once, but in reality so that his hosts might know that he still rode that restive palfrey. Before he entered Lauriane's presence, honest Sylvain went to the room set aside for him in his neighbor's house, to readjust his clothes, and perfume and beautify himself in the jauntiest and most refined manner. On his side Monsieur Sciarra d'Alvimar, dressed in black velvet and satin, after the Spanish fashion, with hair cut short and a ruff of rich lace, had only to change his boots for silk hose and shoes bedecked with ribbons, to show himself at his best. Although his sedate costume, then considered old-fashioned in France, was better suited to Bois-Doré's age than his own, it gave him an indefinable air of a diplomat and a priest at once, which emphasized the more strongly his extraordinarily well-preserved youth and the self-assured refinement of his person. It seemed that old De Beuvre had anticipated a day of offers of marriage; for he had made himself less like a Huguenot, that is to say less austere in his dress than usual, and, deeming his daughter's dress too simple, he had urged her to don a handsomer one. So she made herself as fine as the widow's weeds, which she was in duty bound to wear until she married again, would permit. In those days custom was not to be trifled with.