"Hush!" said the admiral. "I confess that just at this moment I have no desire to be recognized and spied upon and followed. But when I saw you, my dear friend, after so long a separation, and so much anxiety on your account, I could not resist the temptation to accost you and grasp your hand. How long have you been in Paris?" "Only since this morning," said Gabriel; "and I was on my way to see you at the Louvre first of all." "Oh, well," said the admiral, "if you are not in too great haste, just walk a few steps with me. You must tell me what you have been about during your long absence." "I will tell you all that I can tell the most loyal and devoted of friends," Gabriel responded. "But first, Monsieur l'Amiral, I know you will allow me to ask you a question on a subject which is of more interest to me than anything else in the world." "I can imagine what that question will be," said the admiral. "But ought you not to be quite as well able to forecast my reply to it, my dear friend? You propose to ask me, do you not, whether I kept my promise to you,--whether I told the king of the glorious and indispensable part which you had in the defence of St. Quentin?" "No, Monsieur l'Amiral," Gabriel replied; "really that is not what I was about to ask you; for I know, and have learned to trust in your word, and I am perfectly certain that your first thought on your return to Paris was to fulfil your promise, and to declare generously to the king, and to the king alone, that my efforts counted for something in St. Quentin's long resistance. In fact, I have no doubt that you exaggerated my small services in your narration to his Majesty. Yes, Monsieur, I know all that without asking. But what I do not know, and what it is of the greatest moment that I should know, is the reply of Henri II. to your kind words." "Alas! Gabriel," said the admiral, "Henri made no other reply than to ask me what had become of you. I was very much puzzled what to tell him. The letter you left for me on your departure from St. Quentin was very far from explicit, and only reminded me of my promise. I told the king that I knew you had not fallen, but that you had been made prisoner in all probability, and from a feeling of delicacy had not wanted to inform me of it." "And to that the king--?" asked Gabriel, eagerly. "The king said, my dear friend: 'That is well!' and a smile of satisfaction hovered upon his lips. Then, when I was enlarging upon the magnificence of your feats of arms, and upon the obligations which you had laid upon France and her king, 'Enough of that!' Henri interposed, and haughtily changing the subject of conversation, compelled me to speak of something else." "Yes, that is just as I supposed it would be," said Gabriel, with bitter irony. "Courage, my friend!" rejoined the admiral. "Do you not remember that at St. Quentin I warned you that it was not safe to rely upon the gratitude of the great ones of the world?"