Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/199

 "Infinitely so," said I. "But I would not willingly detain you any farther with a story, the details of which it must naturally be more or less unpleasant for you to hear. Suffice it that, by M. de Culemberg^s advice, I said farewell at eighteen to that kind preceptor and his books, and entered the service of France; and have since then carried arms in such a manner as not to disgrace my family."

"You narrate well; vous avez la voix chaude," said my uncle, turning on his pillows as if to study me. "I have a very good account of you by Monsieur de Mauséant, whom you helped in Spain. And you had some education from the Abbé de Culemberg, a man of a good house? Yes, you will do very well. You have a good manner and a handsome person, which hurts nothing. We are all handsome in the family; even I myself, I have had my successes, the memories of which still charm me. It is my intention, my nephew, to make of you my heir. I am not very well content with my other nephew. Monsieur le Vicomte: he has not been respectful, which is the flattery due to age. And there are other matters."

I was half tempted to throw back in his face that inheritance so coldly offered. At the same time I had to consider that he was an old man, and, after all, my relation; and that I was a poor one, in considerable straits, with a hope at heart which that inheritance might yet enable me to realise. Nor could I forget that, however icy his manners, he had behaved to me from the first with the extreme of liberality and—I was about to write, kindness, but the word, in that connection, would not come. I really owed the man some measure of gratitude, which it would be an ill manner to repay if I were to insult him on his deathbed.

"Your will, monsieur, must ever be my rule," said I, bowing.