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"Sir," said De Conti, haughtily, "there are blots on a man's honor, which can only be wiped out with blood; and when the right hand is powerless, a nobleman learns to use his left." "I claim the privilege of waiting until I shall have regained the use of my right hand," returned Barbesieur with a sinister glance at De Conti.
"How beautiful she is!" murmured a young cavalier, who, with Barbesieur Louvois, was watching the dancers. "Why do you sigh?" replied Barbesieur. "You ought rather to be proud of your future bride." "My future bride!" echoed he, dolefully. "I would she were, my dear friend. But although your father has so graciously given his consent, I am as far from obtaining her as ever."
"No, Barbesieur, in solitude I find my only comfort," returned Strozzi, with a weary sigh. "Here, at least, Laura is indubitably mine; here she is Marchioness de Strozzi." "She is Marchioness de Strozzi throughout the entire world. as I am ready to prove, who saw your hands joined together, and heard your reciprocated vows in Paris."
She is a sort of chaste Artemis who is ashamed of her preference for a man, and would die rather than confess it." "She enchants me at one moment, and drives me to despair the next," sighed the marquis. "No need for despair," was the reply. "My dear marquis," continued Barbesieur, coming close to the ear of the Italian, "what will you give me if I promise that you shall become her husband?"
I am curious to know whether he has forgotten his brother-in-law and benefactor." Barbesieur followed Carlotta to the garden. They were walking silently down the great avenue that led to the conservatory, when, at some distance, they beheld advancing toward them the figure of a man.
"Nonsense!" said Barbesieur, with a coarse laugh; "no man that has money loses reputation. Poverty is the only crime that the world cannot pardon, and you, thanks to the Marchioness Bonaletta, have just inherited a fortune." Louvois shuddered. "A fortune through the murder of my child!" "For which we are not accountable," said Barbesieur, carelessly.
Luckily, they have never found out the secret of my laboratory, for I always carry the key in my pocket. Here it is." He took out his key and unlocked the door, but before opening it he addressed Barbesieur in a solemn whisper: "My dear friend, before you enter my sanctuary, swear to me, by the memory of my dear departed wife, that you will not betray its secrets to Prince Eugene's dragoons."
As he heard these terrible words, Barbesieur dropped, like a felled ox, to the floor. "Count Barbesieur," cried a voice in the antechamber, "your father is dying of apoplexy." Barbesieur started up with an oath, and darted from the room. The Countess de Soissons followed him to the corridor.
When last I saw you, you were at the head of the rabble that mobbed the Palace de Soissons, and had just received a wound in your arm from the pistol of my son, Prince Eugene. I had not the satisfaction of being present at the horsewhipping he administered to you at Long Champs, for I was obliged to fly from your persecutions, and I have never set foot in France until now." Barbesieur laughed.
They might have spared themselves all anxiety; for, in the first place, the king was in another room, at the card-table, and, in the second place, their sensitive loyalty was soon relieved from its perplexities. As a matter of course, Laura's generous indiscretion had been witnessed by Barbesieur; not only by him, however, but by her father and the Duchess of Orleans.
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