Mazarin stood gazing at him with an eye that was eloquent in scorn, then bending down he spoke quickly to him in Italian. What he said I know not, being ignorant of their mother tongue; but from the fierceness of his utterance I'll wager my soul 't was nothing sweet to listen to. When he had done with him, he turned to his valet. “Bernouin,” said he, “summon M. de Mancini's servant and assist him to get my nephew to bed. M. de Luynes, be good enough to take Bernouin's taper and light me back to my apartments.” Unsavoury as was the task, I had no choice but to obey, and to stalk on in front of him, candle in hand, like an acolyte at Notre Dame, and in my heart the profound conviction that I was about to have a bad quarter of an hour with his Eminence. Nor was I wrong; for no sooner had we reached his cabinet and the door had been closed than he turned upon me the full measure of his wrath. “You miserable fool!” he snarled. “Did you think to trifle with the trust which in a misguided moment I placed in you? Think you that, when a week ago I saved you from starvation to clothe and feed you and give you a lieutenancy in my guards, I should endure so foul an abuse as this? Think you that I entrusted M. de Mancini's training in arms to you so that you might lead him into the dissolute habits which have dragged you down to what you are--to what you were before I rescued you--to what you will be to-morrow when I shall have again abandoned you?” “Hear me, your Eminence!” I cried indignantly. “'T is no fault of mine. Some fool hath sent M. de Mancini a basket of wine and--” “And you showed him how to abuse it,” he broke in harshly. “You have taught the boy to become a sot; in time, were he to remain under your guidance, I make no doubt but that he would become a gamester and a duellist as well. I was mad, perchance, to give him into your care; but I have the good fortune to be still in time, before the mischief has sunk farther, to withdraw him from it, and to cast you back into the kennel from which I picked you.” “Your Eminence does not mean--” “As God lives I do!” he cried. “You shall quit the Palais Royal this very night, M. de Luynes, and if ever I find you unbidden within half a mile of it, I will do that which out of a misguided sense of compassion I do not do now--I will have you flung into an oubliette of the Bastille, where better men than you have rotted before to-day. Per Dio! do you think that I am to be fooled by such a thing as you?” “Does your Eminence dismiss me?” I cried aghast, and scarce crediting that such was indeed the extreme measure upon which he had determined. “Have I not been plain enough?” he answered with a snarl.