Read These Old Shades for Free Online

It is not to be believed!”
    “I am his dog. He is kind to me, and I love him,” said Léon firmly.
    “Kind! Madame, you hear?” Gaston appealed to the housekeeper, who signed, and folded her hands.
    “He is very young,” she said.
    “Now I will tell you of a thing!” Gaston exclaimed. “This Duc, what did he do, think you, three years ago? You see this hôtel? It is fine, it is costly! Eh bien! Me, I have served the Duke for six years, so you may know that I speak truth. Three years ago he was poor! There were debts and mortgages. Oh, we lived the same, bien sûr; the Alastairs are always thus. We had always the same magnificence, but there were only debts behind the splendour. Me, I know. Then we go to Vienna. As ever, the Duc he play for great stakes: that is the way of his house. At first he loses. You would not say he cared, for still he smiles. That too is his way. Then there comes a young nobleman, very rich, very joyous. He plays with the Duc. He loses; he suggests a higher stake; the Duc, he agrees. What would you? Still that young noble loses. On and on, until at last—pouf! It is over! That fortune, it has changed hands. The young man he is ruined— absolument ! The Duc, he goes away. He smiles—ah, that smile! The young man fights a duel with pistols a little later, and he fires wide, wide! Because he was ruined he chose Death! And the Duc—” Gaston waved his hands—“he comes to Paris and buys this hôtel with that young noble’s fortune!”
    “Ah!” sighed Madame, and shook her head.
    Léon tilted his chin a little.
    “It is no such great matter. Monseigneur would always play fair. That young man was a fool. Voilà tout!”
    “Mon Dieu , is it thus you speak of the wickedness? Ah, but I could tell of things! If you knew the women that theDuc has courted! If you knew——”
    “Monsieur!” Madame Dubois raised protesting hands. “Before me?”
    “I ask pardon, madame. No, I say nothing. Nothing! But what I know!”
    “Some men,” said Léon gravely, “are like that, I think. I have seen many.”
    “Fi donc!” Madame cried. “So young, too!”
    Léon disregarded the interruption, and looked at Gaston with a worldly wisdom that sat quaintly on his young face.
    “And when I have seen these things I have thought that it is always the woman’s fault.”
    “Hear the child!” exclaimed Madame. “What do you know, petit , at your age?”
    Léon shrugged one shoulder, and bent again over his book.
    “Perhaps naught,” he answered.
    Gaston frowned upon him, and would have continued the discussion had not Gregory forestalled him.
    “Tell me, Léon, do you accompany the Duke to-night?”
    “I always go with him.”
    “Poor, poor child!” Madame Dubois sighed gustily. “Indeed, it is not fitting.”
    “Why is it not fitting? I like to go.”
    “I doubt it not, mon enfant. But to take a child to Vassaud’s, and to Torquillier’s—voyons, it is not convenable !”
    Léon’s eyes sparkled mischievously.
    “Last night I went with Monseigneur to the Maison Chourval,” he said demurely.
    “What!” Madame sank back in her chair. “It passes all bounds!”
    “Have you been there, Madame?”
    “I? Nom de Dieu, what next will you ask? Is it likely that I should go to such a place?”
    “No, Madame. It is for the nobles, is it not?”
    Madame snorted.
    “And for every pretty slut who walks the streets!” she retorted.
    Léon tilted his head to one side.
    “Me, I did not think them pretty. Painted, and vulgar, with loud voices, and common tricks. But I did not see much.” His brow wrinkled. “I do not know—I think perhaps I had offended Monseigneur, for of a sudden he swept round, and said ‘Await me below!’ He said it as though he were angered.”
    “Tell us, Léon, what is it like, the Maison Chourval?” asked Gaston, unable to conceal his curiosity.
    “Oh, it is a big hôtel, all gold and dirty white, and smelling of some scent that suffocates one. There is a