This vague apprehension which disturbed Lauriane was a sort of disenchantment, which she did not fully understand. She had always insisted upon regarding her father as a hero; her anxieties at the convent, due to the thought of the perils he had incurred for his faith, had exalted to enthusiasm the conception she had formed of him. She had been forced to abandon her ideal since he had been at home. In the first place, although De Beuvre had complained that he grew stout in idleness, and they had expected that he would return emaciated and exhausted, he was ruddier and more portly than ever. His mind seemed to have grown dense in proportion. His blunt gayety had become a little vulgar. He posed as a sailor, smoked a pipe, swore beyond all reason, forgot to wrap his scepticism in Montaigne's ingenious aphorisms, and at times adopted an air of sly and mysterious satisfaction which was by no means courteous to his friends. The solution of this last riddle was let fall by him on the day following his return to La Motte, during a conference which we are about to describe. LXV They had hunted during the day, then supped, and were sitting about the fire in the large salon, when Guillaume d'Ars, who had been very assiduous in his attentions to Lauriane since the news of the peace, asked leave, with some playful emotion, to make a speech. They all ceased their games and conversation, and Guillaume, after appealing to Lauriane for special encouragement, which she accorded him without a suspicion of what it was all about, spoke as follows: "Mesdames"--Mercedes was present,--"messieurs, friends, kinsmen and neighbors, all honored, respected and beloved, I beg you to listen to a story which is my own. In me you see a young man neither better nor worse made than many another; ignorant enough, Master Jovelin will agree; reasonably rich and well-born, but those are not virtues; brave, but that is no subject for boasting; lastly--I pause that some one may kindly eulogize me; for, as you see, I hardly understand praising myself." "Assuredly," exclaimed the marquis with his customary good-humor, "you are more than you claim, cousin: the flower of the nobility of the province, the mirror of chivalry, and, like Alcidon, 'so much esteemed by those who know you, that there is naught to which your merit doth not entitle you to aspire.'" "A truce to your insipid nonsense from _Astrée_!" said Monsieur de Beuvre. "What are you aiming at, Guillaume? and why do you come in quest of praise from us, when no one here has any thought of complaining of you?" "Because, messire, having a momentous request to present to you, I wished to have for advocates all those in whom you place most confidence." "We all bear witness to your loyalty, courage, courtesy and staunch friendship," said Lauriane. "Now, speak; for there are two women here, that is to say two curious mortals."