He gathered up a pinch of the ash and blew it into the air.

"Happily the poet smelt nothing but paper. Lockets and love-letters;

and D'Hérouville and I for cutting each other's throats! That is

droll. . . . My faith, I will do it! It will be a tolerably good

stroke. 'I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times'! Chevalier,

Chevalier! Dip steel into blood, and little comes of it; but dip steel

into that black liquid named ink, and a kingdom topples. She is to

become a nun, too, she says. I think not."

It was the Vicomte d'Halluys; and when, shortly after this soliloquy,

Montaigne came in, he saw that the vicomte was smiling and stabbing

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with the tip of his finger some black ash which sifted about on the

table.




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