The Duke turned, an opulent figure in dark blue and gold. He was standing by one of the tall vases elaborately carved with garlands, the vases that in summer overflowed with bright red and yellow flowers: these vases were now empty, and the gardeners had replaced the carved lids. “Youth never sees the reason of that law, my son. I am wholly unprepared to say whether or not this is a lucky circumstance.” The Duke again paused, looking thoughtfully across the terrace, toward the battlemented walls and the four towers of the southern façade. His gazing seemed to go well beyond the fountain and the radiating low hedges and gravelled walkways of the terrace, to go beyond, for that matter, the darkening castle. Twilight was rising: you saw a light in one window. “At all events, we are home again, young dreamer. I too was once a dreamer. And at all events, there is Little Brother waiting for us.” _3._ _Widowers Seek Consolation_ Little brother was indeed waiting for them, at the arched doorway, impatient of his governess’ restraint. At sight of them he began telling, coincidently, of how hungry he was, and of how he had helped old Margot to milk a cow that afternoon, and of how a courier was waiting for Monsieur my Father in great long boots, up to here. The trifold tale was confusing, for at eight little Raoul could not yet speak plainly. His sleeve was torn, and he had a marvelously dirty face. Behind him stood pallid pretty Mademoiselle Berthe, the governess who a trifle later, during the next winter, killed herself. She had already begun bewailing her condition to the Duke, even while she obstinately would have none of the various husbands whom her kindly patron recommended, from among his dependants, as ready to make that condition respectable. There seemed no pleasing the girl, and Florian could see that his father, for all his uniform benevolence, regarded her as a nuisance. But the Duke now gazed down, at the pale frightened-looking creature, with that fine condescending smile which he accorded almost everybody. “Mademoiselle, children are a grave responsibility. I have just found Florian asleep in the mud yonder, whereas you have evidently just plucked this other small pest from the pig-sty. It is lucky that we have no more brats to contend with, Mademoiselle, for the present, is it not?” Florian wondered, long afterward, how Mademoiselle had looked, and what she replied. He could not recollect. But he did remember that at this instant Little Brother ran from her and hugged first one of his father’s superb legs and then Florian. Little Brother was warm and tough-feeling and astonishingly strong, and he smelled of clean earth.