Pagina 286 de 896

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face

outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The

nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door.

"Good night!" said the uncle. "I look to the pleasure of seeing

you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew

to his chamber there!--And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if

you will," he added to himself, before he rang his little bell

again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom.

The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro

in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep,

that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his

softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like

a refined tiger:--looked like some enchanted marquis of the

impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into

tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on.