Directing his man to fetch a certain kind of Madeira, he turned to me with a look of polite inquiry which was scarcely reassuring. And I reflected, the caution with which I had been endowed coming uppermost, that the man might have changed since Monsieur Gratiot had seen him. He had, moreover, the air of a man who gives a forced attention, which seemed to me the natural consequences of the recent actions of his son. "I fear that I am intruding upon your affairs, Monsieur," I answered. "Not at all, sir," he said politely. "I have met that charming gentleman, Mr. Wilkinson, who came here to brush away the causes of dissension, and cement a friendship between Kentucky and Louisiana." It was most fortunate that the note of irony did not escape me. "Where governments failed, General Wilkinson succeeded," I answered dryly. Monsieur de St. Gre glanced at me, and an enigmatical smile spread over his face. I knew then that the ice was cracked between us. Yet he was too much a man of the world not to make one more tentative remark. "A union between Kentucky and Louisiana would be a resistless force in the world, Mr. Ritchie," he said. "It was Nebuchadnezzar who dreamed of a composite image, Monsieur," I answered; "and Mr. Wilkinson forgets one thing,--that Kentucky is a part of the United States." At that Monsieur St. Gre laughed outright. He became a different man, though he lost none of his dignity. "I should have had more faith in my old friend Gratiot," he said; "but you will pardon me if I did not recognize at once the statesman he had sent me, Mr. Ritchie." It was my turn to laugh.