“Very well! Of what consequence? — Vatel!”

The man dressed in black and violet turned round. He had a good and mild countenance, without expression — a mathematician minus the pride. A certain fire sparkled in the eyes of this personage, a rather sly smile played round his lips; but the observer might soon have remarked that this fire and this smile applied to nothing, enlightened nothing. Vatel laughed like an absent man, and amused himself like a child. At the sound of his master’s voice he turned round, exclaiming: “Oh! monseigneur!”

“Yes, it is I. What the devil are you doing here, Vatel? Wine! You are buying wine at a cabaret in the Place de Greve!”

“But, monseigneur,” said Vatel, quietly after having darted a hostile glance at Gourville,