Justin smiled, and his glance travelled to the boy.

“I wonder?” he said softly.

“You have some special reason?”

“As you so sapiently remark, my dear Hugh, I have some special reason.”

Davenant shrugged his shoulders, and allowed the subject to drop. He sat watching the child at the table, who presently finished his repast, and came to the Duke’s side.

“If you please, sir, I have finished.”

Avon put up his eyeglass.

“Have you?” he said.

The boy knelt suddenly and, to Davenant’s surprise, kissed the Duke’s hand.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

Avon disengaged himself, but the boy knelt still, looking up into the handsome face with humble eyes. The Duke took a pinch of snuff.

“My esteemed child, there sits the man you had best thank.” He waved his hand towards Davenant. “I should never have thought of feeding you.”

“I—I thanked you for saving me from Jean, milor’,” the boy answered.

“You are reserved for a worse fate,” said the Duke sardonically. “You now belong to me—body and soul.”

“Yes, sir. If you please,” murmured the boy, and sent him a swift glance of admiration from beneath his long lashes.

The thin lips curled a little.

“The prospect is no doubt pleasing?”

“Yes, sir. I—I would like to serve you.”

“But then, you do not know me very well,” said Justin, with a slight chuckle. “I am an inhuman taskmaster, eh, Hugh?”

“You are not the man to care for a child of his age,” said Hugh quietly.

“True, very true. Shall I give him to you?”

A trembling hand touched his great cuff.

“Please, sir——”

Justin looked across at his friend.

“I do not think I shall, Hugh. It is so entertaining, and so—er—novel, to be a gilded saint in the eyes of—er—unfledged innocence. I shall keep the boy for just so long as he continues to amuse me. What is your name, my child?”

“Léon, sir.”

“How delightfully brief!” Always a faint undercurrent of sarcasm ran beneath the surface of the Duke’s smooth voice. “Léon. No more, no less. The question is—Hugh will of course have the answer ready—what next to do with Léon?”

“Put him to bed,” said Davenant.

“Naturally—And do you think—a bath?”

“By all means.”

“Ah yes!” sighed the Duke, and struck a handbell at his side.

A lackey came in answer to the summons, bowing deeply.

“Your Grace desires?”

“Send me Walker,” said Justin.

The lackey effaced himself, and presently a neat individual came in, grey-haired and prim.

“Walker! I had something to say to you. Yes, I remember. Walker, do you observe this child?”

Walker glanced at the kneeling boy.

“Ay, your Grace.”

“He does. Marvellous,” murmured the Duke. “His name, Walker, is Léon. Strive to bear it in mind.”

“Certainly, your Grace.”

“He requires several things, but first a bath.”

“Ay, your Grace.”

“Secondly, a bed.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Thirdly, a nightgown.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Fourthly, and lastly, a suit of clothes. Black.”

“Black, your Grace.”

“Severe and funereal black, as shall befit my page. You will procure them. No doubt you will prove yourself equal to this occasion. Take the child away, and show him the bath, the bed, and the nightgown. And then leave him alone.”

“Very good, your Grace.”

“And you, Léon, rise. Go with the estimable Walker. I shall see you to-morrow.”

Léon came to his feet, and bowed.

“Yes, Monseigneur. Thank you.”

“Pray, do not thank me again,” yawned the Duke. “It fatigues me.” He watched Léon go out, and turned to survey Davenant.

Hugh looked full into his eyes.

“What does this mean, Alastair?”

The Duke crossed his legs, and swung one foot.

“I wonder?” he said pleasantly. “I thought that you would be able to tell me. You are always so omniscient, my dear.”

“Some scheme you have in mind, I know,” Hugh said positively. “I have known you long enough to be sure of that. What do you want with that child?”

“You are sometimes most importunate,” complained Justin. “Never more so than when you become virtuously severe. Pray spare me a homily.”

“I have no intention of lecturing you. All I would say is that it is impossible for you to take that child as your page.”

“Dear me!” said Justin, and gazed pensively into the fire.

“For one thing, he is of gentle birth. One can tell that from his speech, and his delicate hands and face. For another—his innocence shines out of his eyes.”

“How very distressing!”

“It would be very distressing if that innocence left him—because of you,” Hugh said, a hint of grimness in his rather dreamy voice.

“Always so polite,” murmured the Duke.

“If you wish to be kind to him——”

“My dear Hugh! I thought you said you knew me?”

Davenant smiled at that.

“Well, Justin, as a favour to me, will you give me Léon, and seek a page elsewhere?”

“I am always sorry to disappoint you, Hugh. I desire to act up to your expectations on all possible occasions. So I shall keep Léon. Innocence shall walk behind Evil—you see, I forestall you—clad in sober black.”

“Why do you want him? At least tell me that?”

“He has Titian hair,” said Justin blandly. “Titian hair has ever been one of—my—ruling—passions.” The hazel eyes glinted for a moment, and were swiftly veiled. “I am sure you will sympathize with me.”

Hugh rose and walked to the table. He poured himself out a glass of burgundy, and sipped it for a time in silence.

“Where have you been this evening?” he asked at length.

“I really forget. I believe I went first to De Touronne’s house. Yes, I remember now. I won. Strange.”

“Why strange?” inquired Hugh.

Justin nicked a grain of snuff from his great cuff.

“Because, Hugh, in the days, not so long since, when it was—ah—common knowledge that the noble family of Alastair was on the verge of ruin—yes, Hugh, even when I was mad enough to contemplate marriage with the present—er—Lady Merivale—I could only lose.”

“I’ve seen you win thousands in a night, Justin.”

“And lose them the following night. Then, if you remember, I went away with you to—now, where did we go? Rome! Of course!”

“I remember.”

The thin lips sneered a little.

“Yes. I was the—ah—rejected and heart-broken suitor. I should have blown my brains out to be quite correct. But I was past the age of drama. Instead I proceeded—in due course—to Vienna. And I won. The reward, my dear Hugh, of vice.”

Hugh tilted his glass, watching the candle-light play on the dark wine.

“I heard,” he said slowly, “that the man from whom you won that fortune—a young man, Justin——”

“—with a blameless character.”

“Yes. That young man—so I heard—did blow his brains out.”

“You were misinformed, my dear. He was shot in a duel. The reward of virtue. The moral is sufficiently pointed, I think?”

“And you came to Paris with a fortune.”

“Quite a considerable one. I bought this house.”

“Yes. I wonder how you reconcile it with your soul?”

“I haven’t one, Hugh. I thought you knew that.”

“When Jennifer Beauchamp married Anthony Merivale you had something approaching a soul.”

“Had I?” Justin regarded him with some amusement.

Hugh met his look.

“And I wonder too what Jennifer Beauchamp is to you now?”

Justin held up one beautiful white hand.

“Jennifer Merivale, Hugh. She is the memory of a failure, and of a spell of madness.”

“And yet you have never been quite the same since.”

Justin rose, and now the sneer was marked.

“I told you half an hour ago, my dear, that it was my endeavour to act up to your expectations. Three years ago—in fact, when I heard from my sister Fanny of Jennifer’s marriage—you said with your customary simplicity that although she would not accept my suit, she had made me. Voilŕ tout.”

“No.” Hugh looked thoughtfully across at him. “I was wrong, but——”

“My dear Hugh, pray do not destroy my faith in you!”

“I was wrong, but not so much wrong. I should have said that Jennifer prepared the way for another woman to make you.”

Justin closed his eyes.

“When you become profound, Hugh, you cause me to regret the day that saw me admit you into the select ranks of my friends.”

“You have so many, have you not?” said Hugh, flushing.

“Parfaitement.” Justin walked to the door. “Where there is money there are also—friends.”

Davenant set down his glass.

“Is that meant for an insult?” he said quietly.

Justin paused, his hand on the door-knob.

“Strange to say, it was not. But by all means call me out.”

Hugh laughed suddenly.

“Oh, go to bed, Justin! You are quite impossible!”

“So you have often told me. Good night, my dear.” He went out, but before he had shut the door bethought himself of something, and looked back, smiling. “A propos, Hugh, I have got a soul. It has just had a bath, and is now asleep.”

“God help it!” Hugh said gravely.

“I am not sure of my cue. Do I say amen, or retire cursing?” His eyes mocked, but the smile in them was not unpleasant. He did not wait for an answer, but shut the door, and went slowly up to bed.

CHAPTER II

Introducing the Comte de Saint-Vire

Shortly after noon on the following day Avon sent for his page. Léon came promptly, and knelt to kiss the Duke’s hand. Walker had obeyed his master’s commands implicitly, and in place of the shabby, grimy child of the evening before was a scrupulously neat boy, whose red curls had been swept severely back from his brow, and whose slim person was clad in plain black raiment, with a starched muslin cravat about his neck.