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 themselves in readiness
behind his chair to forestall his slightest want. Indeed, had he
been the very King himself, no greater honour could we have shown
him at the Hotel de Bardelys.
But the restraint that his coming had brought with it hung still
upon the company, for Chatellerault was little loved, and his
presence there was much as that of the skull at an Egyptian banquet.
For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about my table -
amongst whom there were few that had not felt his power - I feared
there might be scarcely one would have the grace 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-morrow all Paris would be showing him, and
to this end I played the host with all the graciousness that role
may bear, and overwhelmed him with my cordiality, whilst to thaw
all iciness from the bearing of my other guests, I set the wines to
flow more freely still. My dignity would permit no less of me,
else would it have seemed that I rejoiced in a rival's downfall and
took satisfaction from the circumstance that his disfavour with the
King was like to result in my own further exaltation.
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