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 CHAPTER IX

EUGÈNE BEAUDÉSIR

It was no wonder the Marquise de Montmirail, amid the hurry and excitement of a stag-hunt, failed to recognise the merry page who used to play with her child in that stalwart musketeer whom she pressed her eager barb so hard to overtake. The George Hamilton of royal ante-chambers and palace stairs, with eyes full of mirth and pockets full of bon-bons, laughing, skipping, agile, and mischievous as a monkey, had grown into a strong, fine-looking man, a distinguished soldier, well known in the army and at Court as Captain George of the Grey Musketeers. He had dropped the surname of Hamilton altogether now, and nothing remained to him of his nationality and family characteristics but a certain depth of chest and squareness of shoulder, accompanied by the bold keen glance that had shone even in the boy's eyes, and was not quenched in the man's, denoting a defiant and reckless disposition which, for a woman like the Marquise, possessed some indescribable charm.

As he flung his sword on a couch, and sat down to breakfast in his luxurious quarters—booted, belted, and with his hat on—the man seemed thoroughly in character with the accessories by which he was surrounded. He was the soldier all over—but the soldier adventurer—the soldier of fortune, rather than the soldier of routine. The room in which he sat was luxurious indeed and highly ornamented, but the luxuries were those of the senses rather than the intellect; the ornaments consisted chiefly of arms and such implements of warfare. Blades of the finest temper, pistols