"What are your engagements? You are not by chance a fencing-instructor?" M. de Kercadiou had observed the leather waistcoat and the foil tucked under Andre-Louis' arm.
"I am the master of this academy--the academy of the late Bertrand des Amis, the most flourishing school of arms in Paris to-day."
M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
"And you are master of it?"
"Maitre en fait d'Armes. I succeeded to the academy upon the death of des Amis."
He left M. Kercadiou to think it over, and went to make his arrangements and effect the necessary changes in his toilet.
"So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword," said M. de Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
"That and the need to guard one's self in these times."
"And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what is after all an honourable profession, a profession mainly supported by the nobility, can at the same time associate himself with these peddling attorneys and low pamphleteers who are spreading dissension and insubordination?"
"You forget that I am a peddling attorney myself, made so by your own wishes, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. "You say the academy flourishes?" he asked presently.
"It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could employ a third. It is hard work."
"That should mean that your circumstances are affluent."
"I have reason to be satisfied. I have far more than I need."
"Then you'll be able to do your share in paying off this national debt," growled the nobleman, well content that--as he conceived it--some of the evil Andre-Louis had helped to sow should recoil upon him.
Then the talk veered to Mme. de Plougastel. M. de Kercadiou, Andre-Louis gathered, but not the reason for it, disapproved most strongly of this visit. But then Madame la Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there was no denying, whom all the world obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present absent in Germany, but would shortly be returning. It was an indiscreet admission from which it was easy to infer that M. de Plougastel was one of those intriguing emissaries who came and went between the Queen of France and her brother, the Emperor of Austria.
The carriage drew up before a handsome hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Denis, at the corner of the Rue Paradis, and they were ushered by a sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt and brocade, that opened upon a terrace above a garden that was a park in miniature. Here madame awaited them. She rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading to her, and came forward with both hands outheld to greet her cousin Kercadiou.