He did not hold out his hand, but bowed very grandly and rang a little bell that stood near the tray of gems. Luc returned the bow in silence, glad to take his departure; the black page appeared, and conducted him from the mansion. Luc passed through the beautiful apartments without any sense of pleasure now; he felt exhausted, and even faint. He longed to be out in the night and under the stars. When he was on the threshold of the street door another page breathlessly overtook him. “Monseigneur, you left your glove,” he said. Luc took the riding gauntlet, and felt something heavy in the palm. The colour throbbed in his face; he shook out on to his hand a diamond ring of exceptional beauty and remarkably set with sapphires. “Yes, it is my glove,” he said to the page, who was hurrying away, “but take this back to M. de Richelieu--it is a mistake.” He held out the ring. “Monseigneur said the jewel was yours,” returned the page. “Well, then,” replied M. de Vauvenargues proudly, “take it as your guerdon for bringing me the glove.” He flung it on the carpet at the boy’s feet and left the Governor’s house. CHAPTER XIII THREE LETTERS Luc was back at Aix in the peace, the confinement, the even atmosphere of his own home. He told his father that M. de Richelieu had not been able to do anything for him, and the old Marquis advised him to give up all thoughts of any further career and settle down in Aix. Luc listened patiently, but no advice could have shown less understanding of his character; even while he listened his heart was throbbing and his blood tingling with the desire of life, of liberty, of action, of glory. The very moment he had stepped across the threshold of his father’s house he had felt the ordered, sluggish days fall round him like a chain; he saw the years stretch ahead in an uneventful avenue, with an undistinguished tomb at the end, and every nerve in his being cried out against it. His fruitless journey, the heavy disappointment caused by coming into actual contact with one of the men ruling France and finding him like M. de Richelieu, the persecution, the degradation, the misery he had witnessed in riding through Languedoc were but so many goads to urge him to a further attempt on fortune. Paris blazed even brighter in his visions, and he thought long and often on the name of M. de Voltaire. To please his parents, he still retained the forms of Christianity, and never hinted that he held that doctrine of free-thinking which his father so abhorred. But this reserve was another chain: he desired to be with those with whom he could exchange ideas, from whom he could gain wisdom, experience, and encouragement; not to have to be for ever deferring to those opinions, habits, and traditions that he no longer shared nor admired.