Warmly, most warmly, did I express my gratitude, fancying myself now richer than princes; for the sum of three thousand crowns per annum went far beyond any dreams which I yet had of expense. Monsieur de Villardin smiled at the enthusiasm with which I poured forth the thanks, and at the ideas I seemed to entertain of the boundlessness of my wealth.
"Well, well," he said, "you will learn to appreciate it more justly in time. Go now and give the groom the papers, with particular orders to bring back the deed to-night, for no one can tell what to-morrow may bring forth. Return to me as soon as you have given him your directions."
I immediately obeyed, and choosing one of the grooms who was my more especial favourite in the family, I gave him the papers, with injunctions to use all speed and diligence. I then returned to the library, and found that the Duke had just concluded a billet, on which he wrote the address of the Count de Mesnil; and after drawing a small cord of floss silk across the folds, he sealed the ligature at both ends, and put the note into my hands:--"You will take that," he said, with a calm smile, "to our good friend the Count de Mesnil; but do not go till after breakfast, nor let it seem by your manner that there is anything extraordinary in your mission; for, to my taste, things of this kind had better always be conducted as quietly as possible. Deliver it into the Count's own hand, when you have reached his dwelling, and bring me back his reply."
Of course I very well understood that I was charged with one of those cartels of mortal defiance which were then so common in every country of Europe. The matter certainly was nothing new to me, for many a very trifling dispute had I seen brought to the arbitrement of the sword when I followed the camp of the Cavaliers; but it did seem strange to me that the Duke so far departed from the general customs of the day as to send his defiance by a page, instead of by some man equal in rank and station to the person for whom it was intended. I found afterwards, however, that his irritable fear of ridicule, which was the next prominent characteristic of his mind to its susceptibility of the slightest suspicion, was the cause of anything that appeared irregular in his method of proceeding. However that might be, of course I did not object to the task, though it seemed to me doubtful how Monsieur de Mesnil would receive such a cartel from a page, and what might be his treatment of the bearer. Personal risk seldom entered into my calculation in these matters, and I ordered my horse to be ready after breakfast, and a groom to be prepared to accompany me, as gaily as if I had been going upon an errand of pleasure. Before setting out, however, I had an opportunity of seeing the behaviour of the Duke towards his wife, and it, I confess, was the first thing that gave me any pain in the business. It was so gentle, so affectionate, so different from what it had been on former occasions, that, as the thought flashed across my mind, that the first day of such tenderness might be the last of his life, I would have given more than all I had in the world to have prevented the proposed encounter from taking place. To do so was, of course, impossible; and accordingly after breakfast I mounted my horse, and rode away for Mesnil Moray, the dwelling of Monsieur de Villardin's adversary.