"
I had donned my grey velvet doublet--deeming the occasion worthy of it--
whilst Andrea wore a handsome suit of black, with gold lace, which for
elegance it would have been difficult to surpass. An air of pensiveness
added interest to his handsome face and courtly figure, and methought that
Genevi?ve must be hard to please if she fell not a victim to his wooing.
We proceeded along the road bordering the Loire, a road of rare beauty at
any other season of the year, but now bare of foliage, grey, bleak, and
sullen as the clouds overhead, and as cold to the eye as was the sharp wind
to the flesh. As we rode I fell to thinking of what my reception at the
Ch?teau de Canaples was likely to be, and almost to regret that I had
permitted Andrea to persuade me to accompany him. Long ago I had known the
Chevalier de Canaples, and for all the disparity in our ages--for he
counted twice my years--we had been friends and comrades. That, however,
was ten years ago, in the old days when I owned something more than the
name of Luynes. To-day I appeared before him as a ruined adventurer, a
soldier of fortune, a ruffler, a duellist who had almost slain his son in a
brawl, whose details might be known to him, but not its origin.
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