Rafael Sabatini

“ Had I my illusions, I might imagine that my wife must be some woman of whom I should be enamoured. As it is, I have grown to the age of twenty-eight unwed. Marriage becomes desirable. I must think of an heir to all the wealth of Bardelys. And so I go to Languedoc. If the lady be but half the saint that fool Chatellerault has painted her, so much the better for my children; if not, so much the worse. There is the dawn, Mironsac, and it is time we were abed. ”

“ And it seems to me that all France does not hold a lady more desirable. Heaven send she will agree to my suit!”
In that tired way of his that was so pathetic: “Do you love me a little, Marcel?” he asked.
“Sire,” I exclaimed, wondering whither all this was leading us, “need I protest it?”
“No,” he answered dryly; “you can prove it. Prove it by abandoning this Languedoc quest. I have motives—sound motives, motives of political import. I desire another wedding for Mademoiselle de Lavédan. I wish it so, Bardelys, and I look to be obeyed.” ”

“ Let us drive these plaguy gamesters home.”
When the last of them had staggered down my steps, and I had bidden a drowsy lacquey extinguish the candles, I called Ganymède to light me to bed and aid me to undress. His true name was Rodenard; but my friend La Fosse, of mythological fancy, had named him Ganymède, after the cup-bearer of the gods, and the name had clung to him. He was a man of some forty years of age, born into my father's service, and since become my intendant, factotum, majordomo, and generalissimo of my regiment of servants and my establishments both in Paris and at Bardelys. ”