Indeed, his hearer raised his head with sharp surprise, in which entered some unease, but recovering himself and lifting his hat, he rejoined with the utmost grace:
"A pleasant journey, Chevalier Jean Dubarry!"
"A thousand thunders," swore the viscount, grinning horribly as the coach started. "I am in acute pain, Chon, and shall want a surgeon sooner than breakfast."
"We will get one at the first stop while this youth has his meal."
"Excuse me," said Gilbert, as the invalid expressed a desire to drink. "But strong drink is bad for you at present."
"What, are you a doctor as well as philosopher?" queried Jean.
"Not yet, my lord; though I hope to be one some day. But I read that wounded patients must not take anything heated. But if you will let me have your handkerchief, I will dip it in water at the first spring and cool the wound by bandaging it."
The carriage was stopped for Gilbert to get out and wet the cambric.
"This youngster is dreadfully in the way for us to talk business," said Dubarry.
"Pshaw! we will talk in the Southern dialect," said Chon; and it was thanks to this precaution that the two communed to the puzzlement of the youth on the rest of the journey.
But he had the consolation of thinking that he had comforted a viscount who stood in the king's favor. If Andrea only saw him now! He did not think of Nicole.
"Hello!" broke off the viscount, as he looked behind out of the window. "Here comes that Arab with the strange woman on its back. I would give a thousand pistoles for that steed, and a fortune for the beauty."
The black-eyed woman wrapped in a white cloak, with her brow shaded by a broad-brimmed felt hat with long feathers, flew by like an arrow along the roadside, crying:
"She says 'Forward!' in Italian," said the viscount. "Oh, the lovely creature. If I were not in such pain, I would jump out and after her."
"You could not catch her, on that horse. It is the magician, and she is his wife."
"Magician?" questioned the Dubarrys together.
The sister looked at the brother as much as to say: "Was I not right to keep him?" and he nodded emphatically.
In the apartments of Princess Adelaide, daughter of King Louis X., he had housed the Countess Jeanne Dubarry, his favorite since a year, not without studying the effect it would have on the realm. The jolly, mirthful, devil-may-care mad-cap had transformed the silent palace into a monkey-house, where any one was tolerated who kept the fun alive.