“Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your legs,” said the rector.

“It moves about,” replied the chevalier.

“Legs to ribs?” asked Mademoiselle Zephirine.

“Without stopping on the way?” said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, smiling.

The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative gesture which was not a little droll, and proved to an observer that in his youth the sailor had been witty and loving and beloved.  Perhaps his fossil life at Guerande hid many memories.  When he stood, solemnly planted on his two heron-legs in the sunshine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching the gambols of his little dog, perhaps he was living again in some terrestrial paradise of a past that was rich in recollections.

“So the old Duc de Lenoncourt is dead,” said the baron, remembering the paragraph of the “Quotidienne,” where his wife had stopped reading.  “Well, the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his master soon.  I shall go next.”

“My dear, my dear!” said his wife, gently tapping the bony calloused hand of her husband.

“Let him say what he likes, sister,” said Zephirine; “as long as I am above ground he can’t be under it; I am the elder.”

A gay smile played on the old woman’s lips.  Whenever the baron made reflections of that kind, the players and the visitors present looked at each other with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king of Guerande; and after they had left the house they would say, as they walked home:  “Monsieur du Guenic was sad to-night.  Did you notice how he slept?” And the next day the whole town would talk of the matter.  “The Baron du Guenic fails,” was a phrase that opened the conversation in many houses.

“How is Thisbe?” asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel of the chevalier, as soon as the cards were dealt.

“The poor little thing is like her master,” replied the chevalier; “she has some nervous trouble, she goes on three legs constantly.  See, like this.”

In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had Mistigris or the trump,—­a first wile to which he succumbed.

“Oh!” said the baroness, “the end of Monsieur le cure’s nose is turning white; he has Mistigris.”

The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the rector—­as it was to the other players—­that the poor priest could not conceal it.  In all human faces there is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart betray themselves; and these companions, accustomed for years to observe each other, had ended by finding out that spot on the rector’s face:  when he had Mistigris the tip of his nose grew pale.

“You had company to-day,” said the chevalier to Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.

“Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law.  He surprised me by announcing the marriage of the Comtesse de Kergarouet, a Demoiselle de Fontaine.”