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"Meaning that I rule the night?" quoth I, and laughed "The figure is more playful than exact, for whilst the moon is cold and cheerless, me you shall find ever warm and cordial I could have wished, Monsieur de Chatellerault, that your gracing my board were due to a circumstance less untoward than His Majesty's displeasure"

"It is not for nothing that they call you the Magnificent," he answered, with a fresh bow, insensible to the sting in the tail ofcompliments to rest with that, I led him to the table

"Ganymede, a place here for Monsieur le Comte Gilles, Antoine, see to Monsieur de Chatellerault Basile, wine for Monsieur le Comte Bestir there!"

In a moment he was become the centre of a very tur and insistent as bees about a rose Would Monsieur taste of this capon a la casserole, or of this truffled peacock? Would a slice of this juicy haive hi this turkey aux olives? Here was a salad whose secret Monsieur le Marquis's cook had learnt in Italy, and here a vol-au-vent that was invented by Quelon hie who bore a silver tray laden with beakers and Wagons Would Monsieur le Coundy of which Monsieur le Marquis thought highly, and this a delicate Lombardy wine that His Majesty had oft commended Or perhaps Monsieur de Chatellerault would prefer to taste the last vintage of Bardelys?

And so they plagued him and bewildered him until his choice was made; and even then a couple of them held thehtest want Indeed, had he been the very King hireater honour could we have shown him at the Hotel de Bardelys

But the restraint that his co still upon the company, for Chatellerault was little loved, and his presence there was yptian banquet

For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about st whom there were few that had not felt his power--I feared there race to dissemble his contempt of the fallen favourite That he was fallen, as much his words as what already we had known, had told us

Yet in my house I would strive that he should have no foretaste of that coldness that to- hiraciousness that role may bear, and overwhelmed him withof uests, I set the wines to flow nity would permit no less of me, else would it have seemed that I rejoiced in a rival's downfall and took satisfaction fro was like to result in my own further exaltation