"I tell you I could. She has the oddest effect upon me. No other woman has ever affected me in such a way. I feel when I am with her as though we were well matched. If I were a King, I would make her my Queen. I might love others, but I should always say, 'Remember the Queen. The Queen must be remembered, and honoured, and obeyed in all things.' Sometimes I see myself--with her--at a kind of Versailles: every one standing up as we enter: Her Majesty very pale and tall and wonderful in a blue velvet robe and pearls, I would adore her with a passion as constant as it was respectful. I should ask in return _une amitié la plus tendre_. Isidore, she is an angel. The sweetness of her soul is in her face--in the very sound of her voice. I am a little too material to be so sublime in my sentiments as M. de Hausée, but I could be unusually faithful to that charming, beautiful creature. Isn't there a crease under my left arm? Hold the glass for me."
Isidore held the glass while Castrillon, with knit brows, studied the back view of his coat.
"The coat is perfect," said Isidore; "you have no heart or you would never find fault with such a back."
"I couldn't call you anything else," replied the valet, bluntly.
"Then why have you been with me, cat-fish, ever since I was born?"
The Marquis had a stock of names for his servant, none of which he employed unless he felt in a good humour. Owl-pig, hog-mouse, ape-dog, rat-weasel, and cat-fish were the highest expressions of his amiability toward the man who had been his ill-tempered, dishonest, impudent, and treacherous attendant all the years of his life.
"You know, mule-viper," he continued, "that no one else would keep you for five minutes. You are a liar, a thief, and a traitor. Yet I endure you. I agree that I must be either heartless or an idiot to put up with such a rogue."
Isidore grew livid, muttered blasphemies under his breath, and put pink cotton-wool in the toes of his master's dancing-shoes. Castrillon then kicked him into the adjoining room and resumed his gymnastic exercises. At the end of half an hour, the man re-entered carrying a note fastidiously between his left thumb and forefinger.
"Is that for me?" asked the Marquis, who was in the act of turning a double somersault with much agility.