"Captain," said Gaston, after a short silence, "when we undertake, as now, an affair in which we risk our heads, I think we should know each other, so that the past may vouch for the future. Montlouis, Talhouet, De Couëdic, and Pontcalec have told you my name and condition. I was brought up by a brother, who had reasons for personal hatred to the regent. This hatred I have imbibed; therefore, three years ago, when the league was formed among the nobility in Bretagne, I entered the conspiracy; now I have been chosen to come to Paris to receive the instructions of Baron de Valef, who has arrived from Spain, to transmit them to the Duc d'Olivares, his Catholic Majesty's agent in Paris, and to assure myself of his assent." "And what is Captain la Jonquiere to do in all this?" asked Dubois, as though he were doubting the chevalier's identity. "To present me to the Duc d'Olivares. I arrived two hours ago; since then I have seen M. de Valef, and now I come to you. Now you know my history." Dubois listened, and, when Gaston had finished--"As to me, chevalier," said he, throwing himself back indolently in his chair, "I must own my history is somewhat longer and more adventurous; however, if you wish to hear it, I obey." "I think it necessary, in our position, to know each other," said Gaston. "Well," said Dubois, "as you know, I am called Captain la Jonquiere; my father was, like myself, a soldier of fortune; this is a trade at which one gains in general a good deal of glory and very little money; my glorious father died, leaving me, for sole inheritance, his rapier and his uniform; I girded on the rapier, which was rather too long, and I wore the uniform, which was rather too large. From that time," said Dubois, calling the chevalier's attention to the looseness of his coat, "from that time I contracted the habit of always having plenty of room to move easily." Gaston nodded, as though to express his approbation of this habit. "Thanks to my good looks I was received in the Royal Italian, which was then recruiting in France. I held a distinguished post; when--the day before the battle of Malplaquet--I had a slight quarrel with my sergeant about an order which he gave me with the end of his cane raised instead of lowered, as it should have been." "Pardon me," said Gaston, "but I cannot see what difference that could make to the order he was giving." "It made this difference, that in lowering his cane it struck against my hat, which fell to the ground; the result was a duel, in which I passed my saber through his body. Now, as I certainly should have been shot if I had waited to be arrested, I made off, and woke the next morning--devil take me if I know how it happened--in Marlborough's army." "That is to say, you deserted," said Gaston, smiling.