Gabrielle reflected, Why did a voice deep down within whisper words of warning? Here were the congenial persons for whose advent she had longed. What a relief to the _tete-a-tete_ would be the brilliant abbe, and fat Phebus who would not hurt a fly! Thanks to them, Lorge might become endurable. On the suggestion of a return to Paris, the difficulty had occurred to her as to the excuse to be made for her husband's lengthened absence. Clearly she must remain at Lorge, so long as he thought fit to do so. Perhaps the abbe disliked music and hated violoncellos? Together in the dead of night they would capture the marquis's treasure and send it floating down the Loire. "My dear Clovis!" she exclaimed presently, with genuine pleasure; "you singular being! What objection could I have? On the contrary, I am charmed with the opportunity of making the acquaintance of your brothers." CHAPTER V. THE HALF-BROTHERS. Never was there a greater bit of luck for the Lorge hermits than the epigram that was too pungent, and its consequences. With the arrival of the fugitives there was inaugurated a new _regime_. Cobwebs seemed to vanish at a stroke. The dismal old chateau stirred and rubbed its eyes, for, as by magic, the spirit of ennui who had his dwelling there was routed and put to flight. The Abbe Pharamond was made of quicksilver. Such a mass of ubiquitous ever-moving energy would have awakened the seven sleepers. Everyone felt his influence; and no one had a word to say against him, except Toinon and Jean Boulot. Even the objections of these, as might be expected in low-born persons, were of the vaguest. The one found fault with his effeminate manners and mincing ways, the other vowed that he was so sweet as to be mawkish. Balanced one on either knee, the prodigies (with clean pinafores and polished visages) were taught to warble the amorous ditties of the south, an absurd performance which frequently brought over Madame de Vaux in the shanderydan, and caused her to explode with laughter. His presence acted like a magnet. There was always a stock of the neatest compliments on hand for Angelique; the most respectfully rapt attention for the baron's platitudes. He was constantly riding to Montbazon on his way to somewhere else, bent on organizing a picnic or a hunt, and even discovered and dragged from their retreats into the light a variety of country gentlemen who seldom left their burrows. "If the dear man were a layman!" grieved the baroness. "The very thing for Angelique." But since he was a churchman, she must do her best with the other. "Pooh! Stuff and nonsense!" objected the baron. "They were of good family--could boast, indeed, of most superior blood--but were as poor as church mice, both."