"Monsieur, if you are idle Friday afternoon, perhaps you will bestow on me a half-hour at the Manor; and I will try to make half mine no bad one." He was keen enough to feel the delicacy of the point through the deftness of the phrase; and what he said and what he did now had no pose, but sheer gratitude. With a few gracious words to Medallion, she bowed and drove away, leaving Valmond in the midst of an admiring crowd. He was launched on an adventure as whimsical as tragical, if he was an impostor; and if he was not, as pathetic as droll. He was scarcely conscious that Parpon walked beside him, till the dwarf said: "Hold on, my dauphin, you walk too fast for your poor fool." CHAPTER V From this hour Valmond was carried on by a wave of fortune. Before vespers on that Sunday night, it was common talk that he was a true son of the Great Napoleon, born at St. Helena. Why did he come to Pontiac? He wished to be in retirement till his friends, acting for him in France, gave him the signal, and then with a small army of French-Canadians he would land in France. Thousands would gather round his standard, and so marching on to Paris, the Napoleonic faith would be revived, and he would come into his own. It is possible that these stories might have been traced to Parpon, but he had covered up his trail so well that no one followed him. On that Sunday night, young men and old flocked into Valmond's chambers at the Louis Quinze, shook hands with him, addressing him as "Your Excellency" or "Your Highness." He maintained towards them a mysterious yet kindly reserve, singularly effective. They inspected the martial furnishing of the room: the drum, the pair of rifles, the pistols, in the corner, the sabres crossed on the wall, the gold-handled sword that lay upon the table, and the picture of Napoleon on a white horse against the wall. Tobacco and wine were set upon a side table, and every man as he passed out took a glass of wine and enough tobacco for his pipe, and said: "Of grace, your health, monseigneur!" There were those who scoffed, who from natural habit disbelieved, and nodded knowingly, and whispered in each other's ears; but these were in the minority; and all the women and children declared for this new "Man of Destiny." And when some foolish body asked him for a lock of his hair, and old Madame Degardy (crazy Joan, as she was called) followed, offering him a pinch of snuff, and a lad appeared with a bunch of violets from Madame Chalice, the dissentients were cast in shadow, and had no longer courage to doubt. Madame Chalice had been merely whimsical in sending these violets, which her gardener had brought her that very morning.