This peculiar pride of race would have amused me in another man. I found myself listening to Monsieur de St. Gre with gravity, and I did not dare to reply that I had had evidence of Mademoiselle's aptness of retort. "She has been my companion since she was a child, Monsieur. She has disobeyed me, flaunted me, nursed me in illness, championed me behind my back. I have a little book which I have kept of her sayings and doings, which may interest you, Monsieur. I will show it you." This indeed was a new side of Monsieur de St. Gre, and I reflected rather ruefully upon the unvarnished truth of what Mr. Wharton had told me,--ay, and what Colonel Clark had emphasized long before. It was my fate never to be treated as a young man. It struck me that Monsieur de St. Gre had never even considered me in the light of a possible suitor for his daughter's hand. "I should be delighted to see them, Monsieur," I answered. "Would you?" he exclaimed, his face lighting up as he glanced at me. "Alas, Madame de St. Gre and I have promised to go to our neighbors', Monsieur and Madame Bertrand's, for to-night. But, to-morrow, if you have leisure, we shall look at it together. And not a word of this to my daughter, Monsieur," he added apprehensively; "she would never forgive me. She dislikes my talking of her, but at times I cannot help it. It was only last year that she was very angry with me, and would not speak to me for days, because I boasted of her having watched at the bedside of a poor gentleman who came here and got the fever. You will not tell her?" "Indeed I shall not, Monsieur," I answered. "It is strange," he said abruptly, "it is strange that this gentleman and his wife should likewise have had letters to us from Monsieur Gratiot. They came from St. Louis, and they were on their way to Paris." "To Paris?" I cried; "what was their name?" He looked at me in surprise. "Clive," he said. "Clive!" I cried, leaning towards him in my saddle. "Clive! And what became of them?" This time he gave me one of his searching looks, and it was not unmixed with astonishment. "Why do you ask. Monsieur?" he demanded. "Did you know them?" I must have shown that I was strangely agitated. For the moment I could not answer. "Monsieur Gratiot himself spoke of them to me," I said, after a little; "he said they were an interesting couple."