Alone Gloriande and her bridegroom have remained free from the effects of the overfeeding and drinking. Their intoxication is sweeter. They love each other, and soon the hour would come for their retirement. From time to time they exchanged furtive glances of impatience. Ardent are the looks of Conrad; troubled those of Gloriande. Her beautiful bosom undulates attractively the necklace of pearls and diamonds that rests upon it. She even frowns and shrugs her white shoulders upon hearing her father, now in an advanced stage of intoxication, bellowing at the top of his voice for silence and announcing that he would sing an old drinking song of twenty-eight verses, and each couple, drinking from the same goblet, was to empty it at each couplet, after which the bride and bridegroom would be ceremoniously conducted by her maids of honor to the bridal chamber, whose door opened into the hall. At her father's proposition to sing twenty-eight verses, a proposition that was received with general acclaim, Gloriande cast a desolate look upon Conrad, and the latter, turning to his friend Chaumontel, whispered in his ear: "The devil take the drunken old man ... along with his song." "By the way," answered the half intoxicated knight, laughing loudly, "the old man asked me this morning how our English prisoners happened to be dark as moles;" and turning from the Count of Chivry the knight reflected a moment and then proceeded: "But, Conrad, were there not originally eleven rustics instead of ten that we picked up near the forest, from which they had just issued with forks, scythes and axes? They said they were hunting for a wolf that caused them much damage. Ah! Ah! I must still laugh when I think of our capture.... By the devil.... It was eleven and not ten rustics that we caught.... How does it come that, being eleven, there should only be ten now?" "Do you forget that one of them ran away on the road?" "That's a ray of light!" cried Gerard, counting on his fingers with the gravity of a drunken man. "The rustics were eleven. Good.... One of them escapes.... Consequently there should be only ten left! Conrad, you are the brightest of mortals!" At that moment the seigneur of Chivry struck up the fourth couplet of his Bacchic song. No longer could the beautiful Gloriande endure her amorous martyrdom. She exchanged a few signs of intelligence with Conrad, and almost immediately uttered a slight cry, while seizing her father's arm, near whom she was seated. The old seigneur abruptly broke off his song and said to Gloriande, in blank amazement: "What is the matter, dear daughter? Are you not well?" "I feel giddy; I am not well; I shall withdraw to my room." "My dearly beloved Gloriande," said the Sire of Nointel, rising quickly, "allow me to accompany you." "Yes, I wish you would, Conrad.... I shall take some air at the window of my room.... I think that will do me good."