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certain capacities, Monseigneur, as you have seen, and I much desire that they should be found other employment.
    "I shall remember to do so, my good fellow, I shall remember," replied Artois, who already; knew that he would do nothing about it whatever.
    When Robert entered Marguerite's room, the two Princesses had not quite finished dressing; they had washed lengthily before the fire with the warm water and the soapwort which had been brought them, making the restored pleasure last as. long, as possible; they had washed each other's short hair, now st ill pearly with drops of water, and had newly clothed them selves in long white shirts, closed at the neck by a running string, which had been provided. For a moment they were afflicted with modesty.
    "Well, Cousins," said Robert, "you have no need to worry. Stay as you are. I am a member of the family; besides, those shirts you are wearing are more completely concealing than the dresses you used once to appear in. You look like a couple of little nuns. But you already look better than a while ago, and your complexions are beginning to revive. Admit that your living conditions have quickly altered with my coming."
    "Oh, yes indeed and thank you, Cousin!" cried Blanche.
    The room was quite changed in appearance. A curtained bed had been brought, as well as two big chests which acted as benches, a chair with a back to it, and a trestle table upon which were already placed bowls, goblets and Bersumee's wine. A tapestry with a faded design had been hung over the dampest part of the curved wall. A thick taper, brought from the sacristy, was alight upon the table, for though the afternoon had barely begun, daylight was already waning; and upon the hearth under the cone-shaped overmantel huge logs were burning, the damp escaping from their ends with a singing noise of bursting bubbles.
    Immediately behind Robert, Sergeant Lalaine entered with Private Gros-Guillaume and another soldier, bringing up a thick, smoking soup, a large white loaf, round as a pie, a five-pound pasty in a golden crust, a roast hare, a stuffed goose and some juicy pears of a late species, which Bersumee, upon threatening to sack the town, had been able to extract from a greengrocer of Andelys.
    "What," cried Artois, "is that all you're giving us, when I asked for a decent dinner?"
    "It's a wonder, Monseigneur, that we have been able to find as much as we have in this time of famine," replied Lalaine.
    "It's a time of famine, perhaps, for the poor, who are idle enough to expect the earth to produce without being tilled, but not for the wealthy," replied Artois. "I have never sat down to so po or a dinner since I was weaned! "
    The prisoners gazed like young famished animals upon the food which Artois, the better to make the two women aware of their lamentable condition, affected to despise. There were tears in Blanche's eyes. And the three soldiers gazed at the table with a wondering covetousness.
    Gros-Guillaume, who subsisted entirely on boiled rye, and normally served the Captain's dinner, went hesitatingly to the table to cut the bread.
    "No, don't touch it with your, filthy hands," shouted Artois. "We'll cut it ourselves. Go on, get out, before I lose my temper! "
    He could have sent for Lormet, but his guard's slumber was one of the few things Robert respected. Or he could have sent for one of the horsemen, but he preferred to proceed without witnesses.
    As soon as the archers had gone, he said in that facetious tone of voice still assumed by the rich today when by chance they have to carry a dish or wash a plate, "I shall get accustomed to prison life myself. Who knows," he added, "perhaps, one day, my, dear Cousin, you will be putting me in prison?''
    He made Marguerite sit on the chair with the back.
    "Blanche and I will sit on this bench," he said.
    He poured out the wine, raised his goblet towards Marguerite, and cried, "Long live the Queen! "
    "Don't mock me, Cousin," said Marguerite. "It is lacking