"I answer for myself," said the Duchesse de Chaulieu.
"And I for my daughter Diane; she is worthy of her name," added the
prince. "So, then, you all persist in your intentions? However, I
shall arrange, for the sake of Madame and Mademoiselle de Verneuil and
others of the party who stay at home, to drive the stag to the further
end of the pond."
"Make yourself quite easy, mesdames," said the Prince de Loudon, when
the Royal Huntsman had left the room; "that breakfast 'on the nail'
will take place under a comfortable tent."
The next day, at dawn, all signs gave promise of a glorious day. The
skies, veiled by a slight gray vapor, showed spaces of purest blue,
and would surely be swept clear before mid-day by the northwest wind,
which was already playing with the fleecy cloudlets. As the hunting
party left the chateau, the Master of the Hunt, the Duc de Rhetore,
and the Prince de Loudon, who had no ladies to escort, rode in the
advance, noticing the white masses of the chateau, with its rising
chimneys relieved against the brilliant red-brown foliage which the
trees in Normandy put on at the close of a fine autumn.
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