I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness, and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated, required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me. "Well, you must tell that to Denise," he said pleasantly; "doubtless you will find her a patient listener. At first, of course," he continued, pulling on his gauntlets and smiling faintly, "she will be a little shy. I have no doubt that the good sisters have brought her up to regard a man in much the same light as a wolf; and a suitor as something worse. But, _eh bien, mon ami!_ women are women after all, and in a week or two you will commend yourself. We may hope, then, to see you to-morrow evening--if not before?" "Most certainly, M. le Marquis." "Why not Victor?" he answered, laying his hand on my arm with a touch of the old _bonhomie_. "We shall soon be brothers, and then, doubtless, shall hate one another. In the meantime, give me your company to the gates. There was one other thing I wanted to name to you. Let me see--what was it?" But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again. Then he plunged into the matter abruptly. "You have heard of this protest?" he said. "Yes," I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble. "You will sign it, of course?" He had hesitated before he asked the question; I hesitated before I answered it. The protest to which he referred--how formal the phrase now sounds, though we know that under it lay the beginning of trouble and a new world--was one which it was proposed to move in the coming meeting of the _noblesse_ at Cahors; its aim, to condemn the conduct of our representatives at Versailles, in consenting to sit with the Third Estate.