The next morning, as I was to set out for Dumont before the breakfast hour of the household, I descended about eight o'clock to the apartments of good old Jerome Laborde, whose affection for me had not decreased since I had rendered so many services to his nephew. I calculated, therefore, on finding a substantial meal prepared for me in his room; nor was I mistaken, for there it stood upon the table, consisting of everything qualified to fortify the eager and craving stomach of youth against the effects of a long journey.
"Thank you, thank you, good Jerome," I cried, at the sight; "thank you both for my breakfast, and for rising be-times in the morning to give it me, as I know you love not to be the first in the house to see the sun."
"Alack! young gentleman," he answered, with a mournful shake of the head, "although I have been up an hour, yet I am not by several the first that saw the sun this morning. My lord has been up since six. So has Gaspard de Belleville, and closeted with his master for an hour. So, too, has been that pert slut Suzette, my mistress's maid, and she, too, has been called to the conference. I fear all this bodes our poor lady no good, though God knows what my lord can find to be jealous of here, where she sees not a living soul but himself."
This intelligence did not serve as a very pleasant accompaniment to my breakfast. I saw at once how affairs were going, and easily divined that my lord, finding me so little disposed to pamper the jealousy, which, though it tore his very heart, was still his favourite passion, was inclined to take Gaspard into his confidence, very sure of finding all sort of compliance on his part. To him I had been, as it were, a blunt razor in the hands of a man who wished to cut his own throat; but Gaspard de Belleville was very well inclined, I believed, to prove the instrument of the wrong which his lord inflicted upon himself. From this new arrangement, there was, of course, much to fear, as far as my personal favour with the Duke went; but, even under that mortification, it was no small consolation to me to think that Gaspard could do little to injure the poor Duchess. However malevolent might be his natural disposition, as far as I knew he had seen nothing which he could distort to evil purposes, and I also believed him to be too stupid to frame a story for himself, or to invent circumstances with such a regard to probability as would deceive even Monsieur de Villardin's willing credulity. What might proceed from the agency of the maid, Suzette, I could not tell. She was, herself, a bold, intriguing, saucy woman; suspected strongly by every one of not being quite a Diana; but I believed that she really was attached to her mistress, and trusted to that attachment to vindicate the Duchess from all suspicion.