If Beauvais had the certificates, what was his
object in lying to Madame? What benefit would accrue to him?
After all, it was a labyrinth of paths which always brought him
up to the beginning. He drooped his shoulders dejectedly. There
was nothing left for him to do but return to the Red Chateau and
inform them of the fruitlessness of his errand. He would start
on the morrow. Tonight he wanted once more to hear the band, to
wander about the park, to row around the rear of the
archbishop's garden.
"A fine thing to be born in purple--sometimes," he mused. "I
never knew till now the inconveniences of the common mold."
He tramped on, building chateaux en Espagne. That they tumbled
down did not matter; he could rebuild in the space of a second,
and each castle an improvement on its predecessor.
His attention was suddenly drawn away from this idle but
pleasant pursuit. In a side street he saw twenty or thirty
students surging back and forth, laughing and shouting and
jostling. In the center of this swaying mass canes rose and fell.
It was a fight, and as he loved a fight, Maurice pressed his
hat firmly on his head and veered into the side street.
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