"Whom have we to thank for that?" he said, with a whimsical glance at me. "But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least management, all will go well!" But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist him now. "I do not know," I said coldly; "I do not think that the matter is so simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back to the old state." M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes. "You mean, Vicomte," he said, "that you do not wish them to go back?" "I mean that the old state was impossible," I said stiffly. "It could not last. It cannot return." For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him; and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined. But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh, and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt. "Well," he said, "we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign. Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because"--he paused, and looked at me gaily--"we do not know what may be depending upon it." "That is a reason," I answered quickly, "for thinking more before I---- "It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse," he said, bowing very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse, and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine. "Of course," he said, speaking in a low voice, and with a searching look at me, "a contract is a contract, M. le Vicomte; and the Montagues and Capulets, like your _carcan_, are out of date. But, all the same, we must go one way--_comprenez-vous?_--we must go one way--or separate! At least, I think so." And nodding pleasantly, as if he had uttered in these words a compliment instead of a threat, he rode off; leaving me to stand and fret and fume, and finally to stride back under the trees with my thoughts in a whirl, and all my plans and hopes jarring one another in a petty copy of the confusion that that day prevailed, though I guessed it but dimly, from one end of France to the other.