“It is your duty to do so, nay, more than that, your right.”

“Before we pass to M. Fouquet, I should very much regret forgetting another friend of mine.”

“M. du Vallon, the Hercules of France, you mean; oh! as far as he is concerned, his interests are more than safe.”

“No; it is not he whom I intended to refer to.”

“The Comte de la Fere, then?”

“And his son, the son of all four of us.”

“That poor boy who is dying of love for La Valliere, whom my brother so disloyally bereft him of?

Be easy on that score. I shall know how to rehabilitate his happiness. Tell me only one thing, Monsieur d’Herblay;