"He is scarcely scum, sir. One must allow that in point of form he is _parfaitement bien_. It is likely that the fortune of his father has led him quite naturally to believe himself fit for the regiment."
"He ought, instead, to have been standing aproned in a pork-market. He deserves the galleys."
"You are interested, Monsieur, and look at the affair with personal annoyance. As for me, I am guided solely by the royal ordinance requiring proofs of sixteen quarterings for entry into the Bodyguard. If Monsieur Lecour--who is now de Lincy--not Répentigny--cannot show them satisfactorily, he does not fulfil the ordinance, that is all. He is to-day at a shooting party."
"This Lincy name is a worse imposture than the other. I tell you, Monsieur Adjutant, it is _impossible_ for such folk to have nobility."
"Pardon me, sir," said Collinot, taking out his watch. "May I invite you to review the force?"
"I must deny myself this great honour, inasmuch as I am not ready with your new infantry drill," returned de Lotbinière, intensely flattered at an invitation to review Bodyguards.
Besides, he had at last, he said to himself, effected his point. So he ordered his carriage and departed for Paris to pursue the rest of his plans.
When Germain returned from the shooting party, he was sent for from Collinot's office, and upon his entering, the door was closed.
As the closing of Collinot's door was an unusual proceeding, and was known among the regiment to denote something very particular, speculation and excitement immediately became rife, and the news that Lecour was closeted with Collinot spread like wildfire.
Germain, rosy and active, saluted his superior gallantly. The latter returned the action with a non-committal countenance.
"A gentleman calling himself the Marquis de Lotbinière has just been here. Do you know him?"
"I have heard of him in Canada," he said, "but his Marquisate is not believed in there."
"You Canadians have strange tales of each other. He is apparently a very respectable man, and supported his allegations about you--which are in substance the same as those made by Monsieur de Léry--by a certificate from the Genealogist that the family name of Répentigny is LeGardeur, not Lecour."