going on she had not fathomed, but she resolved to be at the bottom of it.
"Abbé!" shouted the Duke, "what are you about? Do you think I would suffer little heathens on my table, that you baptize them with water? They are the best of Christians, I tell you, my friend, and should be well soused, like all good Christians, in wine." Malletort, who had been pouring stealthily out of a carafe at his elbow, accepted his host's challenge, and filled up from a flask.
"To your health, Highness! and confusion to your enemies—White and Red," said he, pointing to two measures of those Burgundies that happened to stand before the ladies.
The Duke started. Malletort's observation, simple as it seemed, brought the diabolical prophecy to his mind, and again he sought courage from his glass.
"Do you mean that for us, monsieur?" asked Madame de Sabran; "since his Highness loves the Burgundy too well to count it a foe, though it has put him on his back, I doubt not, often enough.
"Nay, madame," answered the Abbé, bowing politely; "such as you can never be foes, since you are born to be conquerors. If it did come to a fight, I presume you would grant no quarter."
"None," said she, laughing. "Church and laymen, we should put you all to the sword."
"But the Church are non-combatants," interposed Count Point d'Appui, with perfect sincerity. "You would be excommunicated by our Father the Pope. It is a different species, madame, altogether—a separate race."
"Not a bit of it!" answered the lady. "Men to the tips of their fingers, every one of them! Are you not, Abbé? No! When all is said and done, there are but two distinct creations, and I never can believe they have a common origin. Men and women I put in the one, princes and lackeys in the other. What say you, madame?"
But Madame de Parabére said nothing. She sat in silence, pouting, because it suited the shape of her mouth, and listening, for other reasons of her own.
The Regent, who had now drunk wine enough to be both easily offended and appeased, felt that the shaft aimed at
