“Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation rather surprises me.  Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just as Danville’s father was a merchant; the only difference between them was that one failed and the other realized a large fortune.  Why should you speak of yourself as honored by holding your present place?”

“Have you never heard?” exclaimed Lomaque, with an appearance of great astonishment, “or can you have heard, and forgotten, that Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of France?  Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that she condescended when she married her late husband; and that her great object in life is to get the title of her family (years since extinct in the male line) settled on her son?”

“Yes,” replied Trudaine; “I remember to have heard something of this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time, having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe.  You have lived many years in Danville’s service, Monsieur Lomaque; have you”—­he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land-steward full in the face—­“have you found him a good and kind master?”

Lomaque’s thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the question, as if he were never going to speak again.  He bowed—­Trudaine waited—­he only bowed again.  Trudaine waited a third time.  Lomaque looked at his host with perfect steadiness for an instant, then his eyes began to get weak again.  “You seem to have some special interest,” he quietly remarked, “if I may say so without offense, in asking me that question.”

“I deal frankly, at all hazards, with every one,” returned Trudaine; “and stranger as you are, I will deal frankly with you.  I acknowledge that I have an interest in asking that question—­the dearest, the tenderest of all interests.”  At those last words, his voice trembled for a moment, but he went on firmly; “from the beginning of my sister’s engagement with Danville, I made it my duty not to conceal my own feelings; my conscience and my affection for Rose counseled me to be candid to the last, even though my candor should distress or offend others.  When we first made the acquaintance of Madame Danville, and when I first discovered that her son’s attentions to Rose were not unfavorably received, I felt astonished, and, though it cost me a hard effort, I did not conceal that astonishment from my sister—­”

Lomaque, who had hitherto been all attention, started here, and threw up his hands in amazement.  “Astonished, did I hear you say?  Astonished, Monsieur Trudaine, that the attentions of a young gentleman, possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a highly-bred Frenchman, should be favorably received by a young lady!  Astonished that such a dancer, such a singer, such a talker, such a notoriously fascinating ladies’ man as Monsieur Danville, should, by dint of respectful assiduity, succeed in making some impression on the heart of Mademoiselle Rose!  Oh, Monsieur Trudaine, venerated Monsieur Trudaine, this is almost too much to credit!”