I declare I was almost shaken, almost thought we had wronged him. But M. Etienne gauged him otherwise.

"Your words please me," he began.

"The contemplation of virtue," the rascal droned with down-drawn lips, in pulpit tone, "is always uplifting to the spirit."

"You have boasted," M. Etienne went on, "that your side was up and mine down. Did you not reflect that soon my side may be up and yours down, you would hardly be at such pains to deny that you ever bared blade against the Duke of St. Quentin."

"I have made my declaration in the presence of two witnesses, far too honourable to falsify, that I know nothing of the attack on the duke," Peyrot repeated with apparent satisfaction. "But of course it is possible that by scouring Paris I might get on the scent of your packet. Twenty pistoles, though. That is not much."

M. Etienne stood silent, drumming tattoos on the table, not pleased with the turn of the matter, not seeing how to better it. Had we been sure of our suspicions, we would have charged him, pistol or no pistol, trusting that our quickness would prevent his shooting, or that the powder would miss fire, or that the ball would fly wide, or that we should be hit in no vital part; trusting, in short, that God was with us and would in some fashion save us. But we could not be sure that the packet was with Peyrot. What we had heard him lock in the chest might have been these very pistols that he had afterward taken out again. Three men had fled from M. de Mirabeau's alley; we had no means of knowing whether this Peyrot were he who ran as we came up, he whom I had encountered, or he who had engaged M. Etienne. And did we know, that would not tell us which of the three had stabbed and plundered Huguet. Peyrot might have the packet, or he might know who had it, or he might be in honest ignorance of its existence. If he had it, it were a crying shame to pay out honest money for what we might take by force; to buy your own goods from a thief were a sin. But supposing he had it not? If we could seize upon him, disarm him, bind him, threaten him, beat him, rack him, would he—granted he knew—reveal its whereabouts? Writ large in his face was every manner of roguery, but not one iota of cowardice. He might very well hold us baffled, hour on hour, while the papers went to Mayenne. Even should he tell, we had the business to begin again from the very beginning, with some other knave mayhap worse than this.

Plainly the game was in Peyrot's hands; we could play only to his lead.

"If you will put the packet into my hands, seal unbroken, this day at eleven, I engage to meet you with twenty pistoles," M. Etienne said.

"Twenty pistoles were a fair price for the packet. But monsieur forgets the wear and tear on my conscience incurred for him. I must be reimbursed for that."

"Conscience, quotha!"

"Certainly, monsieur. I am in my way as honest a man as you in yours. I have never been false to the hand that fed me. If, therefore, I divert to you a certain packet which of rights goes elsewhere, my sin must be made worth my while. My conscience will sting me sorely, but with the aid of a glass and a lass I may contrive to forget the pain.

Mirth, my love, and Folly dear, Baggages, you're welcome here!

I fix the injury to my conscience at thirty pistoles, M. le Comte. Fifty in all will bring the packet to your hand."

It had been a pleasure to M. le Comte to fling a tankard in the fellow's face. But the steadfast determination to win the papers for Monsieur, and, possibly, respect for Peyrot's weapon, withheld him.

"Very well, then. In the cabaret of the Bonne Femme, at eleven. You may do as you like about appearing; I shall be there with my fifty pistoles."

"What guaranty have I that you will deal fairly with me?"

"The word of a St. Quentin."

"Sufficient, of course."

The scamp rose with a bow.

"Well, I have not the word of a gentleman to offer you, but I give you the opinion of Jean Peyrot, sometime Father Ambrosius, that he and the packet will be there. This has been a delightful call, monsieur, and I am loath to let you go. But it is time I was free to look for that packet."

M. Etienne's eyes went over to the chest.

"I wish you all success in your arduous search."

"It is like to be, in truth, a long and weary search," Peyrot sighed. "My ignorance of the perpetrators of the outrage makes my task difficult indeed. But rest assured, monsieur, that I shall question every man in Paris, if need be. I shall leave no stone unturned."

M. Etienne still pensively regarded the chest.

"If you leave no key unturned, 'twill be more to the purpose."

"You appear yet to nurse the belief that I have the packet. But as a matter of fact, monsieur, I have not."

I studied his grave face, and could not for the life of me make out whether he were lying. M. Etienne said merely:

"Come, Felix."

"You'll drink a glass before you go?" Peyrot cried hospitably, running to fill a goblet muddy with his last pouring. But M. Etienne drew back.

"Well, I don't blame you. I wouldn't drink it myself if I were a count," Peyrot said, setting the draught to his own lips. "After this noon I shall drink it no more all summer. I shall live like a king.

Kiss me, Folly; hug me, Mirth: Life without you's nothing worth!

Monsieur, can I lend you a hat?"

I had already opened the door and was holding it for my master to pass, when Peyrot picked up from the floor and held out to him a battered and dirty toque, with its draggled feather hanging forlornly over the side. Chafed as he was, M. Etienne could not deny a laugh to the rascal's impudence.

"I cannot rob monsieur," he said.

"M. le Comte need have no scruple. I shall buy me better out of his fifty pistoles."

But M. Etienne was out in the passage, I following, banging the door after me. We went down the stair in time to Peyrot's lusty carolling:

Mirth I'll keep, though riches fly, While Folly's sure to linger by!

"Think you we'll get the packet?" I asked.

"Aye. I think he wants his fifty pistoles. Mordieu! it's galling to let this dog set the terms."

"Monsieur," I cried, "perhaps he'll not stir out at once. I'll run home for Vigo and his men, and we'll make the rascal disgorge."

"Now are you more zealous than honest, boy."

I was silent, abashed, and he added:

"I had not been afraid to try conclusions with him, pistols or not, were I sure that he had the packet. I believe he has, yet there is the chance that, after all, in this one particular he speaks truth. I cannot take any chances; I must get those papers for Monsieur."

"Yes, we could not have done otherwise, M. Etienne. But, monsieur, will you dare go to this inn? M. le Comte is a man in jeopardy; he may not keep rendezvous of the enemy's choosing."

"I might not keep one of Lucas's choosing. Though," he added, with a smile, "natheless, I think I should. But it is not likely this fellow knows of the warrant against me. Paris is a big place; news does not travel all over town as quickly as at St. Quentin. I think friend Peyrot has more to gain by playing fair than playing false, and appointing the cabaret of the Bonne Femme has a very open, pleasing sound. Did he mean to brain me he would scarce have set that place."

"It was not Peyrot alone I meant. But monsieur is so well known. In the streets, or at the dinner-hour, some one may see you who knows Mayenne is after you."

"Oh, of that I must take my chance," he made answer, no whit troubled by the warning. "I go home now for the ransom, and I will e'en be at the pains to doff this gear for something darker."

"Monsieur," I pleaded, "why not stay at home to get your dues of sleep? Vigo will bring the gold; he and I will put the matter through."

"I ask not your advice," he cried haughtily; then with instant softening: "Nay, this is my affair, Felix. I have taken it upon myself to recover Monsieur his papers. I must carry it through myself to the very omega."

I said no more, partly because it would have done no good, partly because, in spite of the strange word, I understood how he felt.

"Perhaps you should go home and sleep," he suggested tenderly.

"Nay," cried I. "I had a cat-nap in the lane; I'm game to see it through."

"Then," he commanded, "you may stay here-abouts and watch that door. For I have some curiosity to know whether he will need to fare forth after the treasure. If he do as I guess, he will spend the next hours as you counsel me, making up arrears of sleep, and you'll not see him till a quarter or so before eleven. But whenever he comes out, follow him. Keep your safe distance and dog him if you can."

"And if I lose him?"

"Come back home. Station yourself now where he won't notice you. That arch there should serve."

We had been standing at the street corner, sheltered by a balcony over our heads from the view of Peyrot's window.

"Monsieur," I said, "I do wish you would bring Vigo back with you."

"Felix," he laughed, "you are the worst courtier I ever saw."

I crossed the street as he told me, glancing up at the third story of the house of the Gilded Shears. No watcher was visible. From the archway, which was entrance to a court of tall houses, I could well command Peyrot's door, myself in deep shadow M. Etienne nodded to me and walked off whistling, staring full in the face every one he met.

I would fain have occupied myself as we guessed the knave Peyrot to be doing, and shut mine aching eyes in sleep. But I was sternly determined to be faithful to my trust, and though for my greater comfort—cold enough comfort it was—I sat me down on the paving-stones, yet I kept my eyelids propped open, my eyes on Peyrot's door. I was helped in carrying out my virtuous resolve by the fact that the court was populous and my carcass in the entrance much in the way of the busy passers-by, so that full half of them swore at me, and the half of that half kicked me. The hard part was that I could not fight them because of keeping my eyes on Peyrot's door.

He delayed so long and so long that I feared with shamed misgiving I must have let him slip, when at length, on the very stroke of eleven, he sauntered forth. He was yawning prodigiously, but set off past my lair at a smart pace. I followed at goodly distance, but never once did he glance around. He led the way straight to the sign of the Bonne Femme.



I entered two minutes after him, passing from the cabaret, where my men were not, to the dining-hall, where, to my relief, they were. At two huge fireplaces savoury soups bubbled, juicy rabbits simmered, fat capons roasted; the smell brought the tears to my eyes. A concourse of people was about: gentles and burghers seated at table, or passing in and out; waiters running back and forth from the fires, drawers from the cabaret. I paused to scan the throng, jostled by one and another, before I descried my master and my knave. M. Etienne, the prompter at the rendezvous, had, like a philosopher, ordered dinner, but he had deserted it now and stood with Peyrot, their backs to the company, their elbows on the deep window-ledge, their heads close together. I came up suddenly to Peyrot's side, making him jump.

"Oh, it's you, my little gentleman!" he exclaimed, smiling to show all his firm teeth, as white and even as a court beauty's. He looked in the best of humours, as was not wonderful, considering that he was engaged in fastening up in the breast of his doublet something hard and lumpy. M. Etienne held up a packet for me to see, before Peyrot's shielding body; it was tied with red cord and sealed with a spread falcon over the tiny letters, Je reviendrai. In the corner was written very small, St. Q. Smiling, he put it into the breast of his doublet.

"Monsieur," my scamp said to him with close lips that the room might not hear, "you are a gentleman. If there ever comes a day when You-know-who is down and you are up, I shall be pleased to serve you as well as I have served him."

"I hanker not for such service as you have given him," M. Etienne answered. Peyrot's eyes twinkled brighter than ever.

"I have said it. I will serve you as vigourously as I have served him. Bear me in mind, monsieur."

"Come, Felix," was all my lord's answer.

Peyrot sprang forward to detain us.

"Monsieur, will you not dine with me? Both of you, I beg. I will have every wine the cellar affords."

"No," said M. Etienne, carelessly, not deigning to anger; "but there is my dinner for you, an you like. I have paid for it, but I have other business than to eat it."

Bidding a waiter serve M. Peyrot, he walked from the room without other glance at him. A slight shade fell over the reckless, scampish face; he was a moment vexed that we scorned him. Merely vexed, I think; shamed not at all; he knew not the feel of it. Even in the brief space I watched him, as I passed to the door, his visage cleared, and he sat him down contentedly to finish M. Etienne's veal broth.

My lord paced along rapidly and gladly, on fire to be before Monsieur with the packet. But one little cloud, transient as Peyrot's, passed across his lightsome countenance.

"I would that knave were of my rank," he said. "I had not left him without slapping a glove in his face."

That Peyrot had come off scot-free put me out of patience, too, but I regretted the gold we had given him more than the wounds we had not. The money, on the contrary, troubled M. Etienne no whit; what he had never toiled for he parted with lightly.

We came to our gates and went straightway up the stairs to Monsieur's cabinet. He sprang to meet us at the door, snatching the packet from his son's eager hand.

"Well done, Etienne, my champion! An you brought me the crown of France I were not so pleased!"

The flush of joy at generous praise of good work kindled on M. Etienne's cheek; it were hard to say which of the two messieurs beamed the more delightedly on the other.

"My son, you have brought me back my honour," spoke Monsieur, more quietly, the exuberance of his delight abating, but leaving him none the less happy. "If you had sinned against me—which I do not admit, dear lad—it were more than made up for now."

"Ah, Monsieur, I have often asked myself of late what I was born for. Now I know it was for this morning."

"For this and many more mornings, Etienne," Monsieur made gay answer, laying a hand on his son's shoulder. "Courage, comrade. We'll have our lady yet."

He smiled at him hearteningly and turned away to his writing-table. For all his sympathy, he was, as was natural, more interested in his papers than in Mlle. de Montluc.

"I'll get this off my hands at once," he went on, with the effect of talking to himself rather than to us. "It shall go straight off to Lemaitre. You'd better go to bed, both of you. My faith, you've made a night of it!"

"Won't you take me for your messenger, Monsieur? You need a trusty one."

"A kindly offer, Etienne. But you have earned your rest. And you, true as you are, are yet not the only staunch servant I have, God be thanked. Gilles will take this straight from my hand to Lemaitre's."

He had inclosed the packet in a clean wrapper, but now, a thought striking him, he took it out again.

"I'd best break off the royal seal, lest it be spied among the president's papers. I'll scratch out my initial, too. The cipher tells nothing."

"He is not likely to leave it about, Monsieur."

"No, but this time we'll provide for every chance. We'll take all the precautions ingenuity can devise or patience execute."

He crushed the seal in his fingers, and took the knife-point to scrape the wax away. It slipped and severed the cords. Of its own accord the stiff paper of the flap unfolded.

"The cipher seems as determined to show itself to me again as if I were in danger of forgetting it," Monsieur said idly. "The truth is—"

He stopped in the middle of a word, snatching up the packet, slapping it wide open, tearing it sheet from sheet. Each was absolutely blank!



XXIV

The Florentines.

M. Etienne, forgetting his manners, snatched the papers from his father's hand, turning them about and about, not able to believe his senses. A man hurled over a cliff, plunging in one moment from flowery lawns into a turbulent sea, might feel as he did.

"But the seal!" he stammered.

"The seal was genuine," Monsieur answered, startled as he. "How your fellow could have the king's signet—"

"See," M. Etienne cried, scratching at the fragments. "This is it. Dunce that I am not to have guessed it! Look, there is a layer of paper embedded in the wax. Look, he cut the seal out, smeared hot wax on the false packet, pressed in the seal, and curled the new wax over the edge. It was cleverly done; the seal is but little thicker, little larger than before. It did not look tampered with. Would you have suspected it, Monsieur?" he demanded piteously.

"I had no thought of it. But this Peyrot—it may not yet be too late—"

"I will go back," M. Etienne cried, darting to the door. But Monsieur laid forcible hands on him.

"Not you, Etienne. You were hurt yesterday; you have not closed your eyes for twenty-four hours. I don't want a dead son. I blame you not for the failure; not another man of us all would have come so near success."

"Dolt! I should have known he could not deal honestly," M. Etienne cried. "I should have known he would trick me. But I did not think to doubt the crest. I should have opened it there in the inn, but it was Lemaitre's sealed packet. However, Peyrot sat down to my dinner: I can be back before he has finished his three kinds of wine."

"Stop, Etienne," Monsieur commanded. "I forbid you. You are gray with fatigue. Vigo shall go."

M. Etienne turned on him in fiery protest; then the blaze in his eyes flickered out, and he made obedient salute.

"So be it. Let him go. I am no use; I bungle everything I touch. But he may accomplish something."

He flung himself down on the bench in the corner, burying his face in his hands, weary, chagrined, disheartened. A statue-maker might have copied him for a figure of Defeat.

"Go find Vigo," Monsieur bade me, "and then get you to bed."

I obeyed both orders with all alacrity.

I too smarted, but mine was the private's disappointment, not the general's who had planned the campaign. The credit of the rescue was none of mine; no more was the blame of failure. I need not rack myself with questioning, Had I in this or that done differently, should I not have triumphed? I had done only what I was told. Yet I was part of the expedition; I could not but share the grief. If I did not wet my pillow with my tears, it was because I could not keep awake long enough. Whatever my sorrows, speedily they slipped from me.

* * * * *

I roused with a start from deep, dreamless sleep, and then wondered whether, after all, I had waked. Here, to be sure, was Marcel's bed, on which I had lain down; there was the high gable-window, through which the westering sun now poured. There was the wardrobe open, with Marcel's Sunday suit hanging on the peg; here were the two stools, the little image of the Virgin on the wall. But here was also something else, so out of place in the chamber of a page that I pinched myself to make sure it was real. At my elbow on the pallet lay a box of some fine foreign wood, beautifully grained by God and polished by grateful man. It was about as large as my lord's despatch-box, bound at the edges with shining brass and having long brass hinges wrought in a design of leaves and flowers. Beside the box were set three shallow trays, lined with blue velvet, and filled full of goldsmith's work-glittering chains, linked or twisted, bracelets in the form of yellow snakes with green eyes, buckles with ivory teeth, glove-clasps thick with pearls, ear-rings and finger-rings with precious stones.

I stared bedazzled from the display to him who stood as showman. This was a handsome lad, seemingly no older than I, though taller, with a shock of black hair, rough and curly, and dark, smooth face, very boyish and pleasant. He was dressed well, in bourgeois fashion; yet there was about him and his apparel something, I could not tell what, unfamiliar, different from us others.

He, meeting my eye, smiled in the friendliest way, like a child, and said, in Italian:

"Good day to you, my little gentleman."

I had still the uncertain feeling that I must be in a dream, for why should an Italian jeweller be displaying his treasures to me, a penniless page? But the dream was amusing; I was in no haste to wake.

I knew my Italian well enough, for Monsieur's confessor, the Father Francesco, who had followed him into exile, was Florentine; and as he always spoke his own tongue to Monsieur, and I was always at the duke's heels, I picked up a deal of it. After Monsieur's going, the father, already a victim, poor man, to the falling-sickness, of which he died, stayed behind with us, and I found a pricking pleasure in talking with him in the speech he loved, of Monsieur's Roman journey, of his exploits in the war of the Three Henrys. Therefore the words came easily to my lips to answer this lad from over the Alps:

"I give you good day, friend."

He looked somewhat surprised and more than pleased, breaking at once into voluble speech:

"The best of greetings to you, young sir. Now, what can I sell you this fine day? I have not been half a week in this big city of yours, yet already I have but one boxful of trinkets left. They are noble, open-handed customers, these gallants of Paris. I have not to show them my wares twice, I can tell you. They know what key will unlock their fair mistresses' hearts. And now, what can I sell you, my little gentleman, to buy your sweetheart's kisses?"

"Nay, I have no sweetheart," I said, "and if I had, she would not wear these gauds."

"She would if she could get them, then," he retorted. "Now, let me give you a bit of advice, my friend, for I see you are but young: buy this gold chain of me, or this ring with this little dove on it,—see, how cunningly wrought,—and you'll not lack long for a sweetheart."

His words huffed me a bit, for he spoke as if he were vastly my senior.

"I want no sweetheart," I returned with dignity, "to be bought with gold."

"Nay," he cried quickly, "but when your own valour and prowess have inflamed her with passion, you should be willing to reward her devotion and set at rest her suspense by a suitable gift."

I looked at him uneasily, for I had a suspicion that he might be making fun of me. But his countenance was as guileless as a kitten's.

"Well, I tell you again I have no sweetheart and I want no sweetheart," I said; "I have no time to bother with girls."

At once he abandoned the subject, seeing that he was making naught by it.

"The messer is very much occupied?" he asked with exceeding deference. "The messer has no leisure for trifling in boudoirs; he is occupied with great matters? Oh, that can I well believe, and I cry the messer's pardon. For when the mind is taken up with affairs of state, it is distasteful to listen even for a moment to light talk of maids and jewels."

Again I eyed him challengingly; but he, with face utterly unconscious, was sorting over his treasures. I made up my mind his queer talk was but the outlandish way of a foreigner. He looked at me again, serious and respectful.

"The messer must often be engaged in great risks, in perilous encounters. Is it not so? Then he will do well to carry ever over his heart the sacred image of our Lord."

He held up to my inspection a silver rosary from which depended a crucifix of ivory, the sad image of the dying Christ carved upon it. Even in Monsieur's chapel, even in the church at St. Quentin, was nothing so masterfully wrought as this figurine to be held in the palm of the hand. The tears started in my eyes to look at it, and I crossed myself in reverence. I bethought me how I had trampled on my crucifix; the stranger all unwittingly had struck a bull's-eye. I had committed grave offence against God, but perhaps if, putting gewgaws aside, I should give my all for this cross, he would call the account even. I knew nothing of the value of a carving such as this, but I remembered I was not moneyless, and I said, albeit somewhat shyly:

"I cannot take the rosary. But I should like well the crucifix. But then, I have only ten pistoles."

"Ten pistoles!" he repeated contemptuously. "Corpo di Bacco! The workmanship alone is worth twenty." Then, viewing my fallen visage, he added: "However, I have received fair treatment in this house, beshrew me but I have! I have made good sales to your young count. What sort of master is he, this M. le Comte de Mar?"

"Oh, there's nobody like him," I answered, "except, of course, M. le Duc."

"Ah, then you have two masters?" he inquired curiously, yet with a certain careless air. It struck me suddenly, overwhelmingly, that he was a spy, come here under the guise of an honest tradesman. But he should gain nothing from me.

"This is the house of the Duke of St. Quentin," I said. "Surely you could not come in at the gate without discovering that?"

"He is a very grand seigneur, then, this duke?"

"Assuredly," I replied cautiously.

"More of a man than the Comte de Mar?"

I would have told him to mind his own business, had it not been for my hopes of the crucifix. If he planned to sell it to me cheap, thereby hoping to gain information, marry, I saw no reason why I should not buy it at his price—and withhold the information. So I made civil answer:

"They are both as gallant gentlemen as any living. About this cross, now—"

"Oh, yes," he answered at once, accepting with willingness—well feigned, I thought—the change of topic. "You can give me ten pistoles, say you? 'Tis making you a present of the treasure. Yet, since I have received good treatment at the hands of your master, I will e'en give it to you. You shall have your cross."

With suspicions now at point of certainty, I drew out my pouch from under my pillow, and counted into his hand the ten pieces which were my store. My rosary I drew out likewise; I had broken it when I shattered the cross, but one of the inn-maids had tied it together for me with a thread, and it served very well. The Italian unhooked the delicate carving from the silver chain and hung it on my wooden one, which I threw over my neck, vastly pleased with my new possession. Marcel's Virgin was a botch compared with it. I remembered that mademoiselle, who had given me half my wealth, the half that won me the rest, had bidden me buy something in the marts of Paris; and I told myself with pride that she could not fail to hold me high did she know how, passing by all vanities, I had spent my whole store for a holy image. Few boys of my age would be capable of the like. Certes, I had done piously, and should now take a further pious joy, my purchase safe on my neck, in thwarting the wiles of this serpent. I would play with him awhile, tease and baffle him, before handing him over in triumph to Vigo.

Sure enough, he began as I had expected:

"This M. de Mar down-stairs, he is a very good master, I suppose?"

"Yes," I said, without enthusiasm.

"He has always treated you well?"

I bethought myself of the trick I had played successfully with the officer of the burgess guard.

"Why, yes, I suppose so. I have only known him two days."

"But you have known him well? You have seen much of him?" he demanded with ill-concealed eagerness.

"But not so very much," I made tepid answer. "I have not been with him all the time of these two days. I have seen really very little of him."

"And you know not whether or no he be a good master?"

"Oh, pretty good. So-so."

He sprang forward to deal me a stinging box on the ear.

I was out of bed at one bound, scattering the trinkets in a golden rain and rushing for him. He retreated before me. It was to save his jewels, but I, fool that I was, thought it pure fear of me. I dashed at him, all headlong confidence; the next I knew he had somehow twisted his foot between mine, and tripped me before I could grapple. Never was wight more confounded to find himself on the floor.

I was starting up again unhurt when I saw something that made me to forget my purpose. I sat still where I was, with dropped jaw and bulging eyes. For his hair, that had been black, was golden.

"Ventre bleu!" I said.

"And so you know not you little villain, whether you have a good master or not?"

"But how was I to dream it was monsieur?" I cried, confounded. "I knew there was something queer about him—about you, I mean—about the person I took you for, that is. I knew there was something wrong about you—that is to say, I mean, I thought there was; I mean I knew he wasn't what he seemed—you were not. And Peyrot fooled us, and I didn't want to be fooled again."

"Then I am a good master?" he demanded truculently, advancing upon me.

I put up my hands to my ears.

"The best, monsieur. And monsieur wrestled well, too."

"I can't prove that by you, Felix," he retorted, and laughed in my nettled face. "Well, if you've not trampled on my jewels, I forgive your contumacy."

If I had, my bare toes had done them no harm. I crawled about the floor, gathering them all up and putting them on the bed, where I presently sat down myself to stare at him, trying to realize him for M. le Comte. He had seated himself, too, and was dusting his trampled wig and clapping it on again.

He had shaved off his mustaches and the tuft on his chin, and the whole look of him was changed. A year had gone for every stroke of the razor; he seemed such a boy, so particularly guileless! He had stained his face so well that it looked for all the world as though the Southern sun had done it for him; his eyebrows and, lashes were dark by nature. His wig came much lower over his forehead than did his own hair, and altered the upper part of his face as much as the shaving of the lower. Only his eyes were the same. He had had his back to the window at first, and I had not noted them; but now that he had turned, his eyes gleamed so light as to be fairly startling in his dark face—like stars in a stormy sky.

"Well, then, how do you like me?"

"Monsieur confounds me. It's witchery. I cannot get used to him."

"That's as I would have it," he returned, coming over to the bedside to arrange his treasures. "For if I look new to you, I think I may look so to the Hotel de Lorraine."

"Monsieur goes to the Hotel de Lorraine as a jeweller?" I cried, enlightened.

"Aye. And if the ladies do not crowd about me—" he broke off with a gesture, and put his trays back in his box.

"Well, I wondered, monsieur. I wondered if we were going to sell ornaments to Peyrot."

He locked the box and proceeded solemnly and thoroughly to damn Peyrot. He cursed him waking, cursed him sleeping; cursed him eating, cursed him drinking; cursed him walking, riding, sitting; cursed him summer, cursed him winter; cursed him young, cursed him old; living, dying, and dead. I inferred that the packet had not been recovered.

"No, pardieu! Vigo went straight on horseback to the Bonne Femme, but Peyrot had vanished. So he galloped round to the Rue Tournelles, whither he had sent two of our men before him, but the bird was flown. He had been home half an hour before,—he left the inn just after us,—had paid his arrears of rent, surrendered his key, and taken away his chest, with all his worldly goods in it, on the shoulders of two porters, bound for parts unknown. Gilles is scouring Paris for him. Mordieu, I wish him luck!"

His face betokened little hope of Gilles. We both kept chagrined silence.

"And we thought him sleeping!" presently cried he.

"Well," he added, rising, "that milk's spilt; no use crying over it. Plan a better venture; that's the only course. Monsieur is gone back to St. Denis to report to the king. Marry, he makes as little of these gates as if he were a tennis-ball and they the net. Time was when he thought he must plan and prepare, and know the captain of the watch, and go masked at midnight. He has got bravely over that now; he bounces in and out as easily as kiss my hand. I pray he may not try it once too often."

"Mayenne dare not touch him."

"What Mayenne may dare is not good betting. Monsieur thinks he dares not. Monsieur has come through so many perils of late, he is happily convinced he bears a charmed life. Felix, do you come with me to the Hotel de Lorraine?"

"Ah, monsieur!" I cried, bethinking myself that I had forgotten to dress.

"Nay, you need not don these clothes," he interposed, with a look of wickedness which I could not interpret. "Wait; I'm back anon."

He darted out of the room, to return speedily with an armful of apparel, which he threw on the bed.

"Monsieur," I gasped in horror, "it's woman's gear!"

"Verily."

"Monsieur! you cannot mean me to wear this!"

"I mean it precisely."

"Monsieur!"

"Why, look you, Felix," he laughed, "how else am I to take you? You were at pains to make yourself conspicuous in M. de Mayenne's salon; they will recognize you as quickly as me."

"Oh, monsieur, put me in a wig, in cap and bells, an you like! I will be monsieur's clown, anything, only not this!"

"I never heard of a jeweller accompanied by his clown. Nor have I any party-colour in my armoires. But since I have exerted myself to borrow this toggery,—and a fine, big lass is the owner, so I think it will fit,—you must wear it."

I was like to burst with mortification; I stood there in dumb, agonized appeal.

"Oh, well, then you need not go at all. If you go, you go as Felicie. But you may stay at home, if it likes you better."

That settled me. I would have gone in my grave-clothes sooner than not go at all, and belike he knew it. I began arraying myself sullenly and clumsily in the murrain petticoats.

There was a full kirtle of gray wool, falling to my ankles, and a white apron. There was a white blouse with a wide, turned-back collar, and a scarlet bodice, laced with black cords over a green tongue. I was soon in such a desperate tangle over these divers garments, so utterly muddled as to which to put on first, and which side forward, and which end up, and where and how by the grace of God to fasten them, that M. Etienne, with roars of laughter, came unsteadily to my aid. He insisted on stuffing the whole of my jerkin under my blouse to give my figure the proper curves, and to make me a waist he drew the lacing-cords till I was like to suffocate. His mirth had by this time got me to laughing so that every time he pulled me in, a fit of merriment would jerk the laces from his fingers before he could tie them. This happened once and again, and the more it happened the more we laughed and the less he could dress me. I ached in every rib, and the tears were running down his cheeks, washing little clean channels in the stain.

"Felix, this will never do," he gasped when at length he could speak. "Never after a carouse have I been so maudlin. Compose yourself, for the love of Heaven. Think of something serious; think of me! Think of Peyrot, think of Mayenne, think of Lucas. Think of what will happen to us now if Mayenne know us for ourselves."

"Enough, monsieur," I said. "I am sobered."

But even now that I held still we could not draw the last holes in the bodice-point nearly together.

"Nay, monsieur, I can never wear it like this," I panted, when he had tied it as tight as he could. "I shall die, or I shall burst the seams." He had perforce to give me more room; he pulled the apron higher to cover gaps, and fastened a bunch of keys and a pocket at my waist. He set a brown wig on my head, nearly covered by a black mortier, with its wide scarf hanging down my back.

"Hang me, but you make a fine, strapping grisette," he cried, proud of me as if I were a picture, he the painter. "Felix, you've no notion how handsome you look. Dame! you defrauded the world when you contrived to be born a boy."

"I thank my stars I was born a boy," I declared. "I wouldn't get into this toggery for any one else on earth. I tell monsieur that, flat."

"You must change your shoes," he cried eagerly. "Your hobnails spoil all."

I put one of his gossip's shoes on the floor beside my foot.

"Now, monsieur, I ask you, how am I to get into that?"

"Shall I fetch you Vigo's?" he grinned.

"No, Constant's," I said instantly, thinking how it would make him writhe to lend them.

"Constant's best," he promised, disappearing. It was as good as a play to see my lord running errands for me. Perhaps he forgot, after a month in the Rue Coupejarrets, that such things as pages existed; or, more likely, he did not care to take the household into his confidence. He was back soon, with a pair of scarlet hose, and shoes of red morocco, the gayest affairs you ever saw. Also he brought a hand-mirror, for me to look on my beauty.

"Nay, monsieur," I said with a sulk that started anew his laughter. "I'll not take it; I want not to see myself. But monsieur will do well to examine his own countenance."

"Pardieu! I should say so," he cried. "I must e'en go repair myself; and you, Felix,—Felicie,—must be fed."

I was in truth as hollow as a drum, yet I cried out that I had rather starve than venture into the kitchen.

"You flatter yourself," he retorted. "You'd not be known. Old Jumel will give you the pick of the larder for a kiss," he roared in my sullen face, and added, relenting: "Well, then, I will send one of the lackeys up with a salver. The lazy beggars have naught else to do."

I bolted the door after him, and when the man brought my tray, bade him set it down outside. He informed me through the panels that he would go drown himself before he would be content to lie slugabed the livelong day while his betters waited on him. I trembled for fear in his virtuous scorn he should take his fardel away again. But he had had his orders. When, after listening to his footsteps descending the stairs, I reached out a cautious arm, the tray was on the floor. The generous meat and wine put new heart into me; by the time my lord returned I was eager for the enterprise.

"Have you finished?" he demanded. "Faith, I see you have. Then let us start; it grows late. The shadows, like good Mussulmans, are stretching to the east. I must catch the ladies in their chambers before supper. Come, we'll take the box between us."

"Why, monsieur, I carry that on my shoulders."

"What, my lass, on your dainty shoulders? Nay, 'twould make the townsfolk stare."

I gnawed my lip in silence; he exclaimed:

"Now, never have I seen a maid fresh from the convent blush so prettily. I'd give my right hand to walk you out past the guard-room."

I shrank as a snail when you touch its horns. He cried:

"Marry, but I will, though!"

Now I, unlike Sir Snail, had no snug little fortress to take refuge in; I might writhe, but I could not defend myself.

"As you will, monsieur," I said, setting my teeth hard.

"Nay, I dare not. Those fellows would follow us laughing to the doors of Lorraine House itself. I've told none of this prank; I have even contrived to send all the lackeys out of doors on fools' errands. We'll sneak out like thieves by the postern. Come, tread your wariest."

On tiptoe, with the caution of malefactors, we crept from stair to stair, giggling under our breath like the callow lad and saucy lass we looked to be. We won in safety to the postern, and came out to face the terrible eye of the world.



XXV

A double masquerade.

"Felix, we are speaking in our own tongue. It is such lapses as these bring men to the gallows. Italian from this word, my girl."

"Monsieur, I have no notion how to bear myself, what to say," I answered uneasily.

"Say as little as you can. For, I confess, your voice and your hands give me pause; otherwise I would take you anywhere for a lass. Your part must be the shy maiden. My faith, you look the role; your cheeks are poppies! You will follow docile at my heels while I tell lies for two. I have the hope that the ladies will heed me and my jewels more than you."

"Monsieur, could we not go safelier at night?"

"I have thought of that. But at night the household gathers in the salon; we should run the gantlet of a hundred looks and tongues. While now, if we have luck, we may win to mademoiselle's own chamber—" He broke off abruptly, and walked along in a day-dream.

"Well," he resumed presently, coming back to the needs of the moment, "let us know our names and station. I am Giovanni Rossini, son of the famous goldsmith of Florence; you, Giulietta, my sister. We came to Paris in the legate's train, trade being dull at home, the gentry having fled to the hills for the hot month. Of course you've never set foot out of France, Fe—Giulietta?"

"Never out of St. Quentin till I came hither. But Father Francesco has talked to me much of his city of Florence."

"Good; you can then make shift to answer a question or two if put to it. Your Italian, I swear, is of excellent quality. You speak French like the Picard you are, but Italian like a gentleman—that is to say, like a lady."

"Monsieur," I bemoaned miserably, "I shall never come through it alive, never in the world. They will know me in the flick of an eye for a boy; I know they will. Why, the folk we are passing can see something wrong; they all are staring at me."

"Of course they stare," he answered tranquilly. "I should think some wrong if they did not. Can your modesty never understand, my Giulietta, what a pretty lass you are?"

He fell to laughing at my discomfort, and thus, he full of gay confidence, I full of misgiving, we came before the doors of the Hotel de Lorraine.

"Courage," he whispered to me. "Courage will conquer the devil himself. Put a good face on it and take the plunge." The next moment he was in the archway, deluging the sentry with his rapid Italian.

"Nom d'un chien! What's all this? What are you after?" the man shouted at us, to make us understand the better. "Haven't you a word of honest French in your head?"

M. Etienne, tapping his box, very brokenly, very laboriously stammered forth something about jewels for the ladies.

"Get in with you, then."

We were not slow to obey.

The courtyard was deserted, nor did we see any one in the windows of the house, against which the afternoon sun struck hotly. To keep out his unwelcome rays, the house door was pushed almost shut. We paused a moment on the step, to listen to the voices of gossiping lackeys within, and then M. Etienne boldly knocked.

There was a scurrying in the hall, as if half a dozen idlers were plunging into their doublets and running to their places. Then my good friend Pierre opened the door. In the row of underlings at his back I recognized the two who had taken part in my flogging. The cold sweat broke out upon me lest they in their turn should know me.

M. Etienne looked from one to another with the childlike smile of his bare lips, demanding if any here spoke Italian.

"I," answered Pierre himself. "Now, what may your errand be?"

"Oh, it's soon told," M. Etienne cried volubly, as one delighted to find himself understood. "I am a jeweller from Florence; I am selling my wares in your great houses. I have but just sold a necklace to the Duchesse de Joyeuse; I crave permission to show my trinkets to the fair ladies here. But take me up to them, and they'll not make you repent it."

"Go tell madame," Pierre bade one of his men, and turning again to us gave us kindly permission to set down our burden and wait.

For incredible good luck, the heavy hangings were drawn over the sunny windows, making a soft twilight in the room. I sidled over to a bench in the far corner and was feeling almost safe, when Pierre—beshrew him!—called attention to me.

"Now, that is a heavy box for a maid to help lug. Do you make the lasses do porters' work, you Florentines?"

"But I am a stranger here," M. Etienne explained. "Did I hire a porter, how am I to tell an honest one? Belike he might run off with all my treasures, and where is poor Giovanni then? Besides, it were cruel to leave my little sister in our lodging, not a soul to speak to, the long day through. There is none where we lodge knows Italian, as you do so like an angel, Sir Master of the Household."

Now, Pierre was no more maitre d'hotel than I was, but that did not dampen his pleasure to be called so. He sat down on the bench by M. Etienne.

"How came you two to be in Paris?" he asked.

My lord proceeded to tell him I know not what glib and convincing farrago, with every excellence, I made no doubt, of accent and gesture. But I could not listen; I had affairs of my own by this time. The lackeys had come up close round me, more interested in me than in my brother, and the same Jean who had held me for my beating, who had wanted my coat stripped off me that I might be whacked to bleed, now said:

"I'll warrant you're hot and tired and thirsty, mademoiselle, for all you look as fresh as cress. Will you drink a cup of wine if I fetch it?"

I had kept my eyes on the ground from the first moment of encounter, in mortal dread to look these men in the face; but now, gaining courage, I raised my glance and smiled at him bashfully, and faltered that I did not understand.

He understood the sense, if not the words, of my answer, and repeated his offer, slowly, loudly. I strove to look as blank as the wall, and shook my head gently and helplessly, and turned an inquiring gaze to the others, as if beseeching them to interpret. One of the fellows clapped Jean on the shoulder with a roar of laughter.

"A fall, a fall!" he shouted. "Here's the all-conquering Jean Marchand tripped up for once. He thinks nothing that wears petticoats can withstand him, but here's a maid that hasn't a word to throw at him."

"Pshaw! she doesn't understand me," Jean returned, undaunted, and promptly pointed a finger at my mouth and then raised his fist to his own, with sucks and gulps. I allowed myself to comprehend then. I smiled in as coquettish a fashion as I could contrive, and glanced on the ground, and slowly looked up again and nodded.

The men burst into loud applause.

"Good old Jean! Jean wins. Well played, Jean! Vive Jean!"

Jean, flushed with triumph, ran off on his errand, while I thought of Margot, the steward's daughter, at home, and tried to recollect every air and grace I had ever seen her flaunt before us lads. It was not bad fun, this. I hid my hands under my apron and spoke not at all, but sighed and smiled and blushed under their stares like any fine lady. Once in one's life, for one hour, it is rather amusing to be a girl. But that is quite long enough, say I.

Jean came again directly with a great silver tankard.

"Burgundy, pardieu!" cried one of his mates, sticking his nose into the pot as it passed him, "and full! Ciel, you must think your lass has a head."

"Oh, I shall drink with her," Jean answered.

I put out my hand for the tankard, running the risk of my big paw's betraying me, resolved that he should not drink with me of that draught, when of a sudden he leaned over to snatch a kiss. I dodged him, more frightened than the shyest maid. Though in this half-light I might perfectly look a girl, I could not believe I should kiss like one. In a panic, I fled from Jean to my master's side.

M. Etienne, wheeling about, came near to laughing out in my face, when he remembered his part and played it with a zeal that was like to undo us. He sprang to his feet, drawing his dagger.

"Who insults my sister?" he shouted. "Who is the dog does this!"

They were on him, wrenching the knife from his hand, wrenching his lame arm at the same time so painfully that he gasped. I was scared chill; I knew if they mishandled him they would brush the wig off.

"Mind your manners, sirrah!" Jean cried.

Monsieur's ardour vanished; a gentle, appealing smile spread over his face.

"I cry your pardon, sir," he said to Jean; then turning to Pierre, "This messer does not understand me. But tell him, I beg you, I crave his good pardon. I was but angered for a moment that any should think to touch my little sister. I meant no harm."

"Nor he," Pierre retorted. "A kiss, forsooth! What do you expect with a handsome lass like that? If you will take her about—"

"Madame says the jeweller fellow is to come up," our messenger announced, returning.

My lord besought Pierre:

"My knife? I may have my knife? By the beard of St. Peter, I swear to you, I meant no harm with it. I drew it in jest."

Now, this, which was the sole true statement he had made since our arrival, was the only one Pierre did not quite believe. He took the knife from Jean, but he hesitated to hand it over to its owner.

"No," he said; "you were angry enough. I know your Italian temper. I'm thinking I'll keep this little toy of yours till you come down."

"Very well, Sir Majordomo," M. Etienne rejoined indifferently, "so be it you give it to me when I go." He grasped the handle of the box, and we followed our guide up the stair, my master offering me the comforting assurance:

"It really matters not in the least, for if we be caught the dagger's not yet forged can save us."

We were ushered into a large, fair chamber hung with arras, the carpet under our feet deep and soft as moss. At one side stood the bed, raised on its dais; opposite were the windows, the dressing-table between them, covered with scent-bottles and boxes, brushes and combs, very glittering and grand. Fluttering about the room were some half-dozen fine dames and demoiselles, brave in silks and jewels. Among them I was quick to recognize Mme. de Mayenne, and I thought I knew vaguely one or two other faces as those I had seen before about her. I started presently to discover the little Mlle. de Tavanne: that night she had worn sky-colour and now she wore rose, but there was no mistaking her saucy face.

We set our box on a table, as the duchess bade us, and I helped M. Etienne to lay out its contents, which done, I retired to the background, well content to leave the brunt of the business to him. It was as he prophesied: they paid me no heed whatever. He was smoothly launched on the third relating of his tale; I trow by this time he almost believed it himself. Certes, he never faltered, but rattled on as if he had two tongues, telling in confidential tone of our father and mother, our little brothers and sisters at home in Florence; our journey with the legate, his kindness and care of us (I hoped that dignitary would not walk in just now to pay his respects to madame la generale); of our arrival in Paris, and our wonder and delight at the city's grandeur, the like of which was not to be found in Italy; and, last, but not least, he had much to say, with an innocent, wide-eyed gravity, in praise of the ladies of Paris, so beautiful, so witty, so generous! They were all crowding around him, calling him pretty boy, laughing at his compliments, handling and exclaiming over his trinkets, trying the effect of a buckle or a bracelet, preening and cooing like bright-breasted pigeons about the corn-thrower. It was as pretty a sight as ever I beheld, but it was not to smile at such that we had risked our heads. Of Mlle. de Montluc there was no sign.

No one was marking me, and I wondered if I might not slip out unseen and make my way to mademoiselle's chamber. I knew she lodged on this story, near the back of the house, in a room overlooking the little street and having a turret-window. But I was somewhat doubtful of my skill to find it through the winding corridors of a great palace. I was more than likely to meet some one who would question my purpose, and what answer could I make? I scarce dared say I was seeking mademoiselle. I am not ready at explanations, like M. le Comte.

Yet here were the golden moments flying and our cause no further advanced. Should I leave it all to M. Etienne, trusting that when he had made his sales here he would be permitted to seek out the other ladies of the house? Or should I strive to aid him? Could I win in safety to mademoiselle's chamber, what a feat!

It so irked me to be doing nothing that I was on the very point of gingerly disappearing when one of the ladies, she with the yellow curls, the prettiest of them all, turned suddenly from the group, calling clearly:

"Lorance!"

Our hearts stood still—mine did, and I can vouch for his—as the heavy window-curtain swayed aside and she came forth.

She came listlessly. Her hair sweeping against her cheek was ebony on snow, so white she was; while under her blue eyes were dark rings, like the smears of an inky finger. M. Etienne let fall the bracelet he was holding, staring at her oblivious of aught else, his brows knotted in distress, his face afire with love and sympathy. He made a step forward; I thought him about to catch her in his arms, when he recollected himself and dropped on his knees to grope for the fallen trinket.

"You wanted me, madame?" she asked Mme. de Mayenne.

"No," said the duchess, with a tartness of voice she seemed to reserve for Mlle. de Montluc; "'twas Mme. de Montpensier."

"It was I," the fair-haired beauty answered in the same breath. "I want you to stop moping over there in the corner. Come look at these baubles and see if they cannot bring a sparkle to your eye. Fie, Lorance! The having too many lovers is nothing to cry about. It is an affliction many and many a lady would give her ears to undergo."

"Take heart o' grace, Lorance!" cried Mlle. de Tavanne. "If you go on looking as you look to-day, you'll not long be troubled by lovers."

She made no answer to either, but stood there passively till it might be their pleasure to have done with her, with a patient weariness that it wrung the heart to see.

"Here's a chain would become you vastly, Lorance," Mme. de Montpensier went on, friendlily enough, in her brisk and careless voice. "Let me try it on your neck. You can easily coax Paul or some one to buy it for you."

She fumbled over the clasp. M. Etienne, with a "Permit me, madame," took it boldly from her hand and hooked it himself about mademoiselle's neck. He delayed longer than he need over the fastening of it, looking with burning intentness straight into her face. She lifted her eyes to his with a quick frown of displeasure, drawing herself back; then all at once the colour waved across her face like the dawn flush over a gray sky. She blushed to her very hair, to her very ruff. Then the red vanished as quickly as it had come; she clutched at her bosom, on the verge of a swoon.

He threw out his arms to catch her. Instantly she stepped aside, and, turning with a little unsteady laugh to the lady at whose elbow she found herself, asked:

"Does it become me, madame?"

The little scene had passed so quickly that it seemed none had marked it. Mademoiselle had stood a little out of the group, monsieur with his back to it, and the ladies were busy over the jewels. She whom mademoiselle had addressed, a big-nosed, loud-voiced lady, older than any of the others, answered her bluntly:

"You look a shade too green-faced to-day, mademoiselle, for anything to become you."

"What can you expect, Mme. de Brie?" Mlle. Blanche promptly demanded. "Mlle. de Montluc is weary and worn from her vigils at your son's bedside."

Mme. de Montpensier had the temerity to laugh; but for the rest, a sort of little groan ran through the company. Mme. de Mayenne bade sharply, "Peace, Blanche!" Mme. de Brie, red with anger, flamed out on her and Mlle. de Montluc equally:

"You impudent minxes! 'Tis enough that one of you should bring my son to his death, without the other making a mock of it."

"He's not dying," began the irrepressible Blanche de Tavanne, her eyes twinkling with mischief; but whatever naughty answer was on her tongue, our mademoiselle's deeper voice overbore her:

"I am guiltless of the charge, madame. It was through no wish of mine that your son, with half the guard at his back, set on one wounded man."

"I'll warrant it was not," muttered Mlle. Blanche.

"Mar has turned traitor, and deserves nothing so well as to be spitted in the dark," Mme. de Brie cried out.

Mademoiselle waited an instant, with flashing eyes meeting madame's. She had spoken hotly before, but now, in the face of the other's passion, she held herself steady.

"Your charge is as false, madame, as your wish is cruel. Do you go to vespers and come home to say such things? M. de Mar is no traitor; he was never pledged to us, and may go over to Navarre when he will."

It was quietly spoken, but the blue lightning of her eyes was too much for Mme. de Brie. She opened her mouth to retort, faltered, dropped her eyes, and finally turned away, yet seething, to feign interest in the trinkets. It was a rout.

"Then you are the traitor, Lorance," chimed the silvery tones of Mme. de Montpensier. "It is not denied that M. de Mar has gone over to the enemy; therefore are you the traitor to have intercourse with him."

She spoke without heat, without any appearance of ill feeling. Hers was merely the desire, for the fun of it, to keep the flurry going. But mademoiselle answered seriously, with the fleetingest glance at M. le Comte, where he, forgetting he knew no French, feasted his eyes recklessly on her, pitying, applauding, adoring her. I went softly around the group to pull his sleeve; we were lost if any turned to see him.

"Madame," mademoiselle addressed her cousin of Montpensier, speaking particularly clearly and distinctly, "I mean ever to be loyal to my house. I came here a penniless orphan to the care of my kinsman Mayenne; and he has always been to me generous and loving—"

"If not madame," murmured Mile. Blanche to herself.

"—as I in my turn have been loving and obedient. It was only two nights ago he told me M. de Mar must be as dead to me. Since then I have held no intercourse with him. Last night he came under my window; I was not in my chamber, as you know. I knew naught of the affair till M. de Brie was brought in bleeding. It was not by my will M. de Mar came here—it was a misery to me. I sent him word by his boy that other night to leave Paris; I implored him to leave Paris. If, instead, he comes here, he racks my heart. It is no joy to me, no triumph to me, but a bitter distress, that any honest gentleman should risk his life in a vain and empty quest. M. de Mar must go his ways, as I must go mine. Should he ever make attempt to reach me again, and could I speak to him, I should tell him just what I have said now to you."

I pressed monsieur's hand in the endeavour to bring him back to sense; he seemed about to cry out on her. But mademoiselle's earnestness had drawn all eyes.

"Pshaw, Lorance! banish these tragedy airs!" Mme. de Montpensier rejoined, her lightness little touched. A wounded bird falls by the rippling water, but the ripples tinkle on. "M. de Mar is not likely ever to venture here again; he had too warm a welcome last night. My faith, he may be dead by this time—dead to all as well as to you. After he vanished into Ferou's house, no one seems to know what happened. Has Charles told you, my sister?"

"Ferou gave him up, of course," Mme. de Mayenne answered. "Monsieur has done what seemed to him proper."

"You are darkly mysterious, sister."

Mme. de Mayenne raised her eyebrows and smiled, as one solemnly pledged to say no more. She could not, indeed, say more, knowing nothing whatever about it. Our mademoiselle spoke in a low voice, looking straight before her:

"If Heaven willed that he escaped last night, I pray he may leave the city. I pray he may never try to see me more. I pray he may depart instantly—at once."

"I pray your prayers may be answered, so be it we hear no more of him," Mme. de Montpensier retorted, tired of the subject she herself had started. "He was never tedious himself, M. de Mar, but all this solemn prating about him is duller than a sermon." She raised a dainty hand behind which to yawn audibly. "Come, mesdames, let us get back to our purchases. Ma foi! it's lucky these jeweller folk know no French."

M. Etienne was himself again, all smiles and quick pleasantries. I slipped off to my post in the background, trying to get out of the eye of Mlle. de Tavanne, who had been staring at me the last five minutes in a way that made my goose-flesh rise, so suspicious, so probing, was it. On my retreat she did indeed move her gaze from me, but only to watch M. le Comte as a hound watches a thicket. It was a miracle that none had pounced on him before, so reckless had he been. I perceived with sickening certainty that Mlle. de Tavanne had guessed something amiss. She fairly bristled with suspicion, with knowledge. I waited from breathless moment to moment for announcement. There was nothing to be done; she held us in the hollow of her hand. We could not flee, we could not fight. We could do nothing but wait quietly till she spoke, and then submit quietly to arrest; later, most like, to death.

Minute followed minute, and still she did not speak. Hope flowed back to me again; perhaps, after all, we might escape. I wondered how high were the windows from the ground.

As I stole across the room to see, Mlle. de Tavanne detached herself from the group and glided unnoticed out of the door.

It was thirty feet to the stones below—sure death that way. But she had given us a respite; something might yet be done. I seized M. Etienne's arm in a grip that should tell him how serious was our pass. Remembering, for a marvel, my foreign tongue, I bespoke him:

"Brother, it grows late. We must go. It will soon be dark. We must go now—now!"

He turned on me with an impatient frown, but before he could answer, Mme. de Montpensier cried, with a laugh:

"And do you fear the dark, wench? Marry, you look as if you could take care of yourself."

"Nay, madame," I protested, "but the box. Come, Giovanni. If we linger, we may be robbed in the dark streets."

"Why, my sister, where are your manners?" he retorted, striving to shake me off. "The ladies have not yet dismissed me."

"We shall be robbed of the box," I persisted; "and the night air is bad for your health, my Nino. If you stay longer you will have trouble in the throat."

He looked at me hard. I tried to make my eyes tell him that my fear was no vague one of the streets, that his throat was in peril here and now. He understood; he cried with merry laughter to Mme. de Montpensier:

"Pray excuse her lack of manners, duchessa. I know what moves the maid. I must tell you that in the house where we lodge dwells also a beautiful young captain—beautiful as the day. It's little of his time he spends at home, but we have observed that he comes every evening to array himself grandly for supper at some one's palace. We count our day lost an we cannot meet him, by accident, on the stairs."

They all laughed. I, with my cheeks burning like any silly maid's, set to work to put up our scattered wares. But despair weighed me down; if we had to remember ceremony we were lost. The ladies were protesting, declaring they had not made their bargains, and monsieur was smirking and bowing, as if he had the whole night before him. Our one chance was to bolt; to charge past the sentry and flee as from the devil. I pulled monsieur's arm again, and muttered in his ear:

"She knows us; she's gone to tell. We must run for it."

At this moment there arose from down the corridor piercing shriek on shriek, the howls of a young child frantic with rage and terror. At the same time sounded other different cries, wild, outlandish chattering.

"The baby! It's Toto! Oh, ciel!" Mme. de Mayenne gasped. "Help, mesdames!" She rushed from the room, Mme. de Montpensier at her heels, all the rest following after.

All, that is, but one. Mlle. de Montluc started as the rest, but at the threshold paused to let them pass. She flung the door to behind them, and ran back to monsieur, her face drawn with terror, her hand outstretched.

"Monsieur, monsieur!" she panted. "Go! you must go!"

He seized her hand in both of his.

"O Lorance! Lorance!"

She laid her left hand on his for emphasis.

"Go! go! An you love me, go!"

For answer he fell on his knees before her, covering those sweet hands with kisses.

The door was flung open; Mlle. de Tavanne stood on the threshold. They started apart, monsieur leaping to his feet, mademoiselle springing back with choking cry. But it was too late; she had seen us.

She was rosy with running, her little face brimming over with mischief. She flitted into the room, crying:

"I knew it! I knew it was M. de Mar! The gray eyes! M. le Duc has done with him as he thought proper, forsooth! Well, I have done as I thought proper. I unchained Mme. de Montpensier's monkey and threw him into the nursery, where he's scared the baby nearly into spasms. Toto carried the cloth-of-gold coverlet up on top of the tester, where he's picking it to pieces, the darling! They won't be back—you're safe for a while, my children. I'll keep watch for you. Make good use of your time. Kiss her well, monsieur."

"Mademoiselle, you are an angel."

"No, she is the angel," Mlle. Blanche laughed back at him. "I'm but your warder. Have no fear; I'll keep good watch. Here, you in the petticoats, that were a boy the other night, go to the farther door. Mme. de Nemours takes her nap in the second room beyond. You watch that door; I'll watch the corridor. Farewell, my children! Peste! think you Blanche de Tavanne is so badly off for lovers that she need grudge you yours, Lorance?"

She danced out of the door, while I ran across to my station, Mlle. de Montluc standing bewildered, ardent, grateful, half laughing, half in tears.

"Lorance, Lorance!" M. Etienne murmured tremulously. "She said I should kiss you—"

I put my fingers in my ears and then took them out again, for if my ears were sealed, how was I to hear Mme. de Nemours approaching? But I admit I should have kept my eyes glued to the crack of the door; that I ever turned them is my shame. I have no business to know that mademoiselle bowed her face upon her lover's shoulder, her hand clasping his neck, silent, motionless. He pressed his cheek against her hair, holding her close; neither had any will to move or speak. It seemed they were well content to stand so the rest of their lives.

Mademoiselle was the first to stir; she raised her head and strove to break away from his locked arms.

"Monsieur! monsieur! This is madness! You must go!"

"Are you sorry I came?" he demanded vibrantly. "Are you sorry, Lorance?"

His eyes held hers; she threw pretence to the winds.

"No, monsieur; I am glad. For if we never meet again, we have had this."

"Aye. If I die to-night, I have had to-day."

Their voices were like the rune of the heart of the forest, like the music of deep streams. I turned away my head ashamed, and strove to think of nothing but the waking of Mme. de Nemours.

"I thought you dead," she moaned, her voice muffled against his cheek. "No one would tell me what happened last night. I could not devise any way of escape for you—"

"There is a tunnel from Ferou's house to the Rue de la Soierie. His mother—merciful angel—let me through."

"And you were not hurt?"

"Not a scratch, ma mie."

"But the wound before? Felix said—"

"I was put out of combat the night I got it," he explained earnestly, troubled even now because he had not obeyed her summons. "I was dizzy; I could not walk."

"But now, monsieur? Does it heal?"

"It is well—almost. 'Twas but a slash on the arm."

"Oh, then have I no anxiety," she murmured, with a smile that twinkled across her lips and was gone. "I cannot perceive you to be disabled, monsieur."

"My sweeting!" he laughed out. "If I cannot hold a sword yet, I can hold my love."

"But you must not, monsieur," she cried, fear, that had slept a moment, springing on her again. "You must go, and this instant, while the others are yet away. I knew you, Blanche knew you; some other will. Oh, go, go, I implore you!"

"If you will come with me."

She made no answer, save to look at him as at a madman.

"Nay, I mean not now, past the sentry. I am not so crazy as that. But you will slip out, you will find a way, and come to me."

Silently, sadly, she shook her head. His arms loosened, and she freed herself from him. But instantly he was close on her again.

"But you must! you will, you must! Ah, Lorance, my father is won over. He bids me win you. He has sworn to welcome you; when he sees you he will be your slave."

"But my cousin Mayenne is not won over."

"Devil fly away with your cousin Mayenne!" M. Etienne retorted with a vehemence that made me shudder, lest the walls have ears.

"Ah, you are free to say that, monsieur, but I am not. I am of his blood, and dwell in his house, and eat at his board."

He was looking at her with a passionate ardour, grasping her actual words less than their import of refusal.

"Are you afraid?" he cried. "Are you frightened, heart-root of mine? You need not be, mignonne. You can contrive to slip from the house—Mlle. de Tavanne will help you. Once in the street, I will meet you; I will carry you home to hold you against all the world."

"It is not that," she answered.

"Am I your fear?" he cried quickly. "Ah, Lorance, my Lorance, you need not. I love you as I love the Queen of Heaven."

"Ah, hush!"

"As I love the Queen of Heaven. I will as soon do sacrilege toward her as ill to you."

He dropped on his knees before her, kissing the hem of her gown. She stood looking down on his bowed head with a tenderness that seemed to infold him as with a mantle.

He raised his eyes to hers, still kneeling at her feet.

"Lorance, will you come with me?"

She was silent a moment, with heaving breast and face a-quiver.

"Monsieur, I am sworn. That night when Felix came, when I was in deadly terror for him and for you, Etienne, I promised my lord, an he would lift his hand from you, to obey him in all things. He bade me never again to hold intercourse with you—alack, I am already forsworn! But I cannot—"

He leaped to his feet, crying out:

"Lorance, he was the first forsworn! For he did move against me—"

"He told you—the warning went through Felix—that if you tried to reach me he would crush you as a buzzing fly. Oh, monsieur, I implored you to leave Paris! You are not kind to me, you are cruel, when you venture here."

"You are cruel to me, Lorance."

Sighing, she turned from him, hiding her face in her hands.

"Mayenne has not kept faith with you!" monsieur went on vehemently. "He has broken his oath. I mean not last night. I had my warning; the attack was provoked. But yesterday in the afternoon, before I made the attempt to see you, he sent to arrest me for the murder of the lackey Pontou."

"Paul's deed!" she cried in white surprise. "He spoke of it—we heard, Felix and I. What, monsieur! sent to arrest you? But you are here."

"They missed me. They took by mistake Paul de Lorraine."

"He was not here last night!" she cried. "Mayenne was demanding him of me."

"Then he slept pleasantly in the Bastille. May he never look on the outside of its walls again!"

"But he will, he does. He must be free by this time; they cannot keep Mayenne's nephew in the Bastille. And oh, if he hated you before, how he will hate you now! Oh, Etienne, if you love me, go! Go to your own camp, your own side, at St. Denis. There are you safe. Here in Paris you may not draw a tranquil breath."

"And shall I flee my dangers? Shall I run, in the face of my peril?"

"Ah, monsieur, perhaps your life is nothing to you. But it is more to me than tongue can tell."

"My love, my love!" He snatched her into his arms; she held away from him to look him beseechingly in the face, her little clutching hands on his shoulders.

"Oh, you will go! you will go!"

"Only if you come with me. Lorance, it is such a little way! Only to meet me in the next square. We will slip out of the gates together—leave Paris and all its plots and murders, and at St. Denis keep our honeymoon."

"Monsieur," she said slowly, "I am told that my cousin Mayenne offered a month ago to give me to you for your name on the roster of the League. Is that true?"

"It is true. But you cannot think, Lorance, it was for any lack of love for you. I swear to you—"

"Nay, you need not. I have it by heart that you love me."

"Lorance!"

"But when you could not take me with honour you would not take me. Your house stands against us; you would not desert your house. Am I then to be false to mine?"

"A woman belongs to her husband's house."

"Aye, but she does not wed the enemy of her own. Monsieur, you are full of loyalty; shall I have none? I was born, my father before me, in the shadow of the house of Lorraine; the Lorraine princes our kinsmen, our masters, our friends. When I was orphaned young, and penniless because King Henry's Huguenots had wrenched our lands away, I came here to my cousin Mayenne, to dwell here in kindness and love as a daughter of the house. Am I to turn traitor now?"

"Lorance," he was fiercely beginning, when Mlle. de Tavanne bounded in.

"On guard!" she hissed at us. "They come!"

She looked behind her into the corridor. Mademoiselle gave her lips to monsieur in one last kiss, and slipped like water from his arms. I was at his side, and we busied ourselves over the trinkets, he with shaking fingers, cheeks burning through the stain.

The ladies streamed into the room, the lovely Mme. de Montpensier alone conspicuous by her absence. Mme. de Mayenne's face was hot and angry, and bore marks of tears. Not in this room only had a combat raged.

"Never shall he come into this house again," madame was crying vigorously. "I had had him strangled, the vile little beast, an she had not seized him. I will now, if she ever dares bring him hither again."

"You certainly should, madame," replied the nearest of the ladies. "You have been, in the goodness of your heart, far too forbearing, too patient under many presumptions. One would suppose the mistress here to be Mme. de Montpensier."

"I will show who is mistress here," the Duchesse de Mayenne retorted. Then her eye fell on Mlle. de Montluc, making her way softly to the door, and the vials of her wrath overflowed upon her:

"What, Lorance, you could not be at the pains to follow me to the rescue of my child! Your little cousin, poor innocent, may be eaten by the beasts for aught you care, while you prink over trinkets."

Mademoiselle faced her blankly, scarce understanding, midst the whirl of her own thoughts, of what she was accused. The little Tavanne came gallantly to the rescue:

"I did not follow you either, madame. We thought it scarcely safe; Lorance could not bear to leave this fellow alone."

Mme. de Mayenne glanced instinctively at her dressing-table's rich accoutrements, touched in spite of herself by such care of her belongings.

"I had not suspected you maids of such fore-thought," she said with relenting. "I vow for once I am beholden to you. You did quite right, Lorance."



XXVI

Within the spider's web.

Mademoiselle slipped softly out of the room, taking our hearts with her. Our one desire now was to be gone; but it was easier wished than accomplished, for there remained the dreary process of bargaining. Mme. de Mayenne had set her heart on a pearl bracelet, Mme. de Brie wanted a vinaigrette, a third lady a pair of shoe-buckles. M. Etienne developed a recklessness about prices that would have whitened the hair of a goldsmith father; I thought the ladies could not fail to be suspicious of such prodigality, to imagine we carried stolen goods. But no; the quick settlements defeated their own ends: they fired our customers with longing to purchase further. I was despairing, when at length Mme. de Mayenne bethought herself that supper-time was at hand, and that no one was yet dressed. To my eyes the company already looked fine enough for a coronation; but I rejoiced to hear them thanking madame for her reminder, with the gratitude of victims snatched from an awful fate. We were commanded to bundle out, which with all alacrity we did.

Freedom was in sight. I was not so nervous on this journey as I had been coming in. As we passed, lackey-led, through the long corridors, I had ease enough of mind to enable me to take my bearings, and to whisper to my master, "That door yonder is the door of the council-room, where I was." Even as I spoke the door opened, two gentlemen appearing at the threshold. One was a stranger; the other was Mayenne.

Our guide held back in deference. The duke and his friend stood a moment or two in low-voiced converse; then the visitor made his farewells, and went off down the staircase.

Mayenne had not appeared aware of our existence, thirty feet up the passage, but now he inquired, as if we had been pieces of merchandise:

"What have you there, Louis?"

"An Italian goldsmith, so please your Grace. Madame has just dismissed him."

He led us forward. Mayenne surveyed us deliberately, and at length said to M. le Comte:

"I will look at your wares."

M. Etienne smiled his eager, deprecating smile, informing his Highness that we, poor creatures, spoke no French.

"How came you in Paris, then?"

M. Etienne for the fourth time went through with his tale. I think this time he must have trembled over it. My Lord Mayenne had not the reputation of being easily gulled. For aught we knew, he might be informed of the name and condition of every person who had entered Paris this year. He might, as he listened stolid-faced, be checking off to himself the number of monsieur's lies. But if M. Etienne trembled in his soul, his words never faltered; he knew his history well, by this. At its finish Mayenne said:

"Come in here."

The lackey was ordered to wait outside, while we followed his Grace of Mayenne across the council-room to that table by the window where he had sat with Lucas night before last. I clinched my teeth to keep them from chattering together. Not Grammont's brutality, not Lucas's venom, not Mlle. de Tavanne's rampant suspicion, had ever frightened me so horribly as did Mayenne's amiable composure. He made me feel as I had felt when I entered the tunnel, helpless in the dark, unable to cope with dangers I could not see. Mayenne was a well, the light shining down its sides a way, and far below the still surface of the water. You hang over the edge and peer till your eyes drop out; you can as easily look through iron as discern how deep the water is. I seemed to see clearly that Mayenne suspected us not in the least. He was as placid as a summer day, turning over the contents of the box, showing little interest in us, much in our wares, every now and then speaking a generous word of praise or asking a friendly question. He was the very model of the gracious prince; the humble tradesmen whom we feigned to be must needs have worshipfully loved him. Yet withal I believed that all the time he knew us; that he was amusing himself with us. Presently, when he tired, he would walk casually out of the room and send in his creatures to stab us.

Had I known this for a truth, that he had discovered us, I should have braced myself, I trow, to meet it. The certainty would have been bearable; I had courage to face ruin. It was the uncertainty that was so heart-shaking—like crossing a morass in the dark. We might be on the safe path; we might with every step be wandering away farther and farther into the treacherous bog; there was no way to tell. Mayenne was quite the man to be kindly patron of the crafts, to pick out a rich present for a friend. He was also the man to sit in the presence of his enemy, unbetraying, tranquil, assured, waiting. It seemed to me that in a few minutes more of this I should go mad; I should scream out: "Yes, I am Felix Broux, and he is M. le Comte de Mar!"

But before I had verily come to this, something happened to change the situation. Entered like a young tempest, slamming the door after him, Lucas.

M. Etienne clutched me by the arm, drawing me back into the embrasure of the window, where we stood in plain sight but with our faces blotted out against the light. Mayenne looked up from two rings he was comparing, one in each hand. Lucas, hat on head, came rapidly across the room.

"So you have appeared again," Mayenne said. "I could almost believe myself back in night before last."

"Aye; at last I have." Lucas was all hot and ruffled, panting half from hurry, half from wrath.

"You saw fit to be absent last night," Mayenne went on indifferently, his eyes on the ring. "I trust, for your sake, you have used your time profitably."

"I have been about my own concerns," Lucas answered lightly, arming himself with his insolence against the other's disdain. In a moment he had mastered the excitement that brought him so stormily into the room. He was once more the Lucas who had entered that other night, nonchalant, mocking.

"Pretty trinkets," he observed, sitting down and lifting a bracelet from the tray.

The close kinship of these men betrayed itself in nothing so sharply as in their unerring instinct for annoying each other. Had Lucas volunteered explanation for his absence, Mayenne would not have listened to it; but as he withheld it, the duke demanded brusquely:

"Well, do you give an account of yourself? You had better."

Lucas repeated the tactics which he had found such good entertainment before. He looked with raised eyebrows toward us.

"You would not have me speak before these vermin, uncle?"

"These vermin understand no French," Mayenne made answer. "But do as it likes you. It is nothing to me."

My master pinched my hand. Mayenne did not know us! After all, he was what M. Etienne had called him—a man, neither god nor devil. He could make mistakes like the rest of us. For once he had been caught napping.

Lucas leaned back in his chair with a meditative air, as if idly wondering whether to speak or not. In his place I should not have wondered one moment. Had Mayenne assured me in that quiet tone that he cared nothing whether I spoke, I should scarce have been able to utter my words fast enough. But there was so strange a twist in Lucas's nature that he must sometimes thwart his own interests, value his caprice above his prosperity. Also, in this case his story was no triumphant one. But at length he did begin it:

"I went to Belin to inform him that day before yesterday Etienne de Mar murdered his lackey, Pontou, in Mar's house in the Rue Coupejarrets."

"Was that your errand?" Mayenne said, looking up in slow surprise. "My faith! your oaths to Lorance trouble you little."

Lucas started forward sharply. "Do you tell me you did not know my purpose?"

"I knew, of course, that you were up to some warlockry," Mayenne answered; "I did not concern myself to discover what."

"There speaks the general! There speaks the gentleman!" Lucas cried out. "A general hangs a spy, yet he profits by spying. The spy runs the risks, incurs the shames; the general sits in his tent, his honour untarnished, pocketing all the glory. Faugh, you gentlemen! You will not do dirty work, but you will have it done for you. You sit at home with clean hands and eyes that see not, while we go forth to serve you. You are the Duke of Mayenne. I am your bastard nephew, living on your favour. But you go too far when you sneer at my smirches."

He was on his feet, standing over Mayenne, his face blazing. M. Etienne made an instinctive step forward, thinking him about to knife the duke. But Mayenne, as we well knew, was no craven.

"Be a little quieter, Paul," he said, unmoved. "You will have the guard in, in a moment."

Lucas held absolutely still for a second. So did Mayenne. He knew that Lucas, standing, could stab quicker than he defend. He sat there with both hands on the table, looking composedly up at his nephew. Lucas flung away across the room.

"I shall have dismissed these people directly," Mayenne continued. "Then you can tell me your tale."

"I can tell it now in two words," Lucas answered, coming abruptly back. "Belin signed the warrant, and sent a young ass of the burgher guard after Mar. I attended to some affairs of my own. Then after a time I went round to the Trois Lanternes to see if they had got him. He was not there—only that cub of a boy of his. When I came in, he swore, the innkeeper swore, the whole crew swore, I was Mar. The fool of an officer arrested me."

I expected Mayenne to burst out laughing in Lucas's chagrined face. But instead he seemed less struck with his nephew's misfortunes than with some other aspect of the affair. He said slowly:

"You told Belin this arrest was my desire?"

"I may have implied something of the sort."

"You repeated it to the arresting officer before Mar's boy!"

"I had no time to say anything before they hustled me off," Lucas exclaimed. "Mille tonnerres! Never had any man such luck as I. It's enough to make me sign papers with the devil."

"Mar would believe I had broken faith with him?"

"I dare say. One isn't responsible for what Mar believes," Lucas answered carelessly.

Mayenne was silent, with knit brows, drumming his hand on the table. Lucas went on with the tale of his woes:

"At the Bastille, I ordered the commissary to send to you. He did not; he sent to Belin. Belin was busy, didn't understand the message, wouldn't be bothered. I lay in my cell like a mouse in a trap till an hour agone, when at last he saw fit to appear—damn him!"

Mayenne fell to laughing. Lucas cried out:

"When they arrested me my first thought was that this was your work."

"In that case, how should you be free now?"

"You found you needed me."

"You are twice wrong, Paul. For I knew nothing of your arrest. Nor do I think I need you. Pardieu! you succeed too badly to give me confidence."

Lucas stood glowering, gnawing his lip, picturing the chagrin, the angry reproaches, the justifications he did not utter. I am certain he pitied himself as the sport of fate and of tyrants, the most shamefully used of mortal men. And so long as he aspired to the hand of Mayenne's ward, so long was he helpless under Mayenne's will.

"'Twas pity," Mayenne said reflectively, "that you thought best to be absent last night. Had you been here, you had had sport. Your young friend Mar came to sing under his lady's window."

"Saw she him?" Lucas cried sharply.

"How should I know? She does not confide in me."

"You took care to find out!" Lucas cried, knowing he was being badgered, yet powerless to keep himself from writhing.

"I may have."

"Did she see him?" Lucas demanded again, the heavy lines of hatred and jealousy searing his face.

"No credit to you if she did not. You accomplish singularly little to harass M. de Mar in his love-making. You deserve that she should have seen him. But, as a matter of fact, she did not. She was in the chapel with madame."

"What happened?"

"Francois de Brie—now there is a youngster, Paul," Mayenne interrupted himself to point out, "who has not a tithe of your cleverness; but he has the advantage of being on the spot when needed. Desiring a word with mademoiselle, he betook himself to her chamber. She was not there, but Mar was warbling under the window."

"Brie?"

"Brie bestirred himself. He sent two of the guard round behind the house to cut off the retreat, while he and Latour attacked from the front."

"Mar's killed?" Lucas cried. "He's killed!"

"By no means," answered Mayenne. "He got away."

Before he could explain further,—if he meant to,—the door opened, and Mlle. de Montluc came in.

Her eyes travelled first to us, in anxiety; then with relief to Mayenne, sitting over the jewels; last, to Lucas, with startlement. She advanced without hesitation to the duke.

"I am come, monsieur, to fetch you to supper."

"Pardieu, Lorance!" Mayenne exclaimed, "you show me a different face from that of dinner-time." Indeed, so she did, for her eyes were shining with excitement, while the colour that M. Etienne had kissed into them still flushed her cheeks.

"If I do," she made quick answer, "it is because, the more I think on it, the surer I grow that my loving cousin will not break my heart."

"I want a word with you, Lorance," Mayenne said quietly.

"As many as you like, monsieur," she replied promptly. "But will you not send these creatures from the room first?"

"Do you include your cousin Paul in that term?"

"I meant these jewellers. But since you suggest it, perhaps it would be as well for Paul to go."

"You hear your orders, Paul."

"Aye, I hear and I disobey," Lucas retorted. "Mademoiselle, I take too much joy in your presence to be willing to leave it."

"Monsieur," she said to the duke, ignoring her cousin Paul with a coolness that must have maddened him, "will you not dismiss your tradespeople? Then can we talk comfortably."

"Aye," answered Mayenne, "I will. I am more gallant than Paul. If you command it, out they go, though I have not half had time to look their wares over. Here, master jeweller," he addressed M. Etienne, slipping easily into Italian, "pack up your wares and depart."

M. Etienne, bursting into rapid thanks to his Highness for his condescension in noticing the dirt of the way, set about his packing. Mayenne turned to his lovely cousin.

"Now for my word to you, mademoiselle. You wept so last night, it was impossible to discuss the subject properly. But now I rejoice to see you more tranquil. Here is the beginning and the middle and the end of the matter: your marriage is my affair, and I shall do as I like about it."

She searched his face; before his steady look her colour slowly died. M. Etienne, whether by accident or design, knocked his tray of jewels off the table. Murmuring profuse apologies, he dropped on his knees to grope for them. Neither of the men heeded him, but kept their eyes steadily on the lady.

"Mademoiselle," Mayenne deliberately went on, "I have been over-fond with you. Had I followed my own interests instead of bowing to your whims, you had been a wife these two years. I have indulged you, mademoiselle, because you were my ally Montluc's daughter, because you came to me a lonely orphan, because you were my little cousin whose baby mouth I kissed. I have let you cavil at this suitor and that, pout that one was too tall and one too short, and a third too bold and a fourth not bold enough. I have been pleased to let you cajole me. But now, mademoiselle, I am at the end of my patience."

"Monsieur," she cried, "I never meant to abuse your kindness. You let me cajole you, as you say, else I could not have done it. You treated my whims as a jest. You let me air them. But when you frowned, I have put them by. I have always done your will."

"Then do it now, mademoiselle. Be faithful to me and to your birth. Cease sighing for the enemy of our house."

"Monsieur," she said, "when you first brought him to me, he was not the enemy of our house. When he came here, day after day, season after season, he was not our enemy. When I wrote that letter, at Paul's dictation, I did not know he was our enemy. You told me that night that I was not for him. I promised you obedience. Did he come here to me and implore me to wed with him, I would send him away."

Mayenne little imagined how truly she spoke; but he could not look in her eyes and doubt her honesty.

"You are a good child, Lorance," he said. "I could wish your lover as docile."

"He will not come here again," she cried. "He knows I am not for him. He gives it up, monsieur—he takes himself out of Paris. I promise you it is over. He gives me up."

"I have not his promise for that," Mayenne said dryly; "but the next time he comes after you, he may settle with your husband."

She uttered a little gasp, but scarce of surprise—almost of relief that the blow, so long expected, had at last been dealt.

"You will marry me, monsieur?" she murmured. "To M. de Brie?"

"You are shrewd, mademoiselle. You know that it will be a good three months before Francois de Brie can stand up to be wed. You say to yourself that much may happen in three months. So it may. Therefore will your bridegroom be at hand to-morrow morning."

She made no rejoinder, but her eyes, wide like a hunted animal's, moved fearsomely, loathingly, to Lucas. Mayenne uttered an abrupt laugh.

"No; Paul is not the happy man. Besides bungling the St. Quentin affair, he has seen fit to make free with my name in an enterprise of his own. Therefore, Paul, you will dance at Lorance's wedding a bachelor. Mademoiselle, you marry in the morning Senor el Conde del Rondelar y Saragossa of his Majesty King Philip's court. After dinner you will depart with your husband for Spain."

Lucas sprang forward, hand on sword, face ablaze with furious protest. Mayenne, heeding him no more than if he had not been there, rose and went to Mlle de Montluc.

"Have I your obedience, cousin?"

"You know it, monsieur."

She was curtseying to him when he folded her in his arms, kissing both her cheeks.

"You are as good as you are lovely, and that says much, ma mie. We will talk a little more about this after supper. Permit me, mademoiselle."

He took her hand and led her in leisurely fashion out of the room.

It wondered me that Lucas had not killed him. He looked murder. Haply had the duke disclosed by so much as a quivering eyelid a consciousness of Lucas's rage, of danger to himself, Lucas had struck him down. But he walked straight past, clad in his composure as in armour, and Lucas made no move. I think to stab was the impulse of a moment, gone in a moment. Instantly he was glad he had not killed the Duke of Mayenne, to be cut himself into dice by the guard. After the duke was gone, Lucas stood still a long time, no less furious, but cogitating deeply.

We had gathered up our jewels and locked our box, and stood holding it between us, waiting our chance to depart. We might have gone a dozen times during the talking, for none marked us; but M. Etienne, despite my tuggings, refused to budge so long as mademoiselle was in the room. Now was he ready enough to go, but hesitated to see if Lucas would not leave first. That worthy, however, showed no intention of stirring, but remained in his pose, buried in thought, unaware of our presence. To get out, we had to walk round one end or the other of the table, passing either before or behind him. M. le Comte was for marching carelessly before his face, but I pulled so violently in the other direction that he gave way to me. I think now that had we passed in front of him, Lucas would have let us go by without a look. As it was, hearing steps at his back, he wheeled about to confront us. If the eye of love is quick, so is the eye of hate. He cried out instantly:

"Mar!"

We dropped the box, and sprang at him. But he was too quick for us. He leaped back, whipping out his sword.

"I have you now, Mar!" he cried.

M. Etienne grabbed up the heavy box in both hands to brain him. Lucas retreated. He might run through M. Etienne, but only at the risk of having his head split. After all, it suited his book as well to take us alive. Shouting for the guards, he retreated toward the door.

But I was there before him. As he ran at M. Etienne, I had dashed by, slammed the door shut, and bolted it. If we were caught, we would make a fight for it. I snatched up a stool for weapon.

He halted. Then he darted over to the chimney, and pulled violently the bell-rope hanging near. We heard through the closed door two loud peals somewhere in the corridor.

We both ran for him. Even as he pulled the rope, M. Etienne struck the box over his sword, snapping it. I dropped my stool, as he his box, and we pinned Lucas in our arms.

"The oratory!" I gasped. With a strength born of our desperation, we dragged him kicking and cursing across the room, heaved him with all our force into the oratory, and bolted the door on him.

"Your wig!" cried M. Etienne, running to recover his box. While I picked it up and endeavoured with clumsy fingers to put it on properly, he set on its legs the stool I had flung down, threw the pieces of Lucas's sword into the fireplace, seized his box, dashed to me and set my wig straight, dashed to the outer door, and opened it just as Pierre came up the corridor.

"Well, what do you want?" the lackey demanded. "You ring as if it was a question of life and death."

"I want to be shown out, if the messer will be so kind. His Highness the duke, when he went to supper, left me here to put up my wares, but I know not my way to the door."

It was after sunset, and the room, back from the windows, was dusky. The lackey seemed not to mark our flushed and rumpled looks, and to be quite satisfied with M. Etienne's explanation, when of a sudden Lucas, who had been stunned for the moment by the violent meeting of his head and the tiles, began to pound and kick on the oratory door.

He was shouting as well. But the door closed with absolute tightness; it had not even a keyhole. His cries came to us muffled and inarticulate.

"Corpo di Bacco!" M. Etienne exclaimed, with a face of childlike surprise. "Some one is in a fine hurry to enter! Do you not let him in, Sir Master of the Household?"

"I wonder who he's got there now," Pierre muttered to himself in French, staring in puzzled wise at the door. Then he answered M. Etienne with a laugh:

"No, my innocent; I do not let him in. It might cost me my neck to open that door. Come along now. I must see you out and get back to my trenchers."

We met not a soul on the stairs, every one, served or servants, being in the supper-room. We passed the sentry without question, and round the corner without hindrance. M. Etienne stopped to heave a sigh of thanksgiving.

"I thought we were done for that time!" he panted. "Mordieu! another scored off Lucas! Come, let us make good time home! 'Twere wise to be inside our gates when he gets out of that closet."

We made good time, ever listening for the haro after us. But we heard it not. We came unmolested up the street at the back, of the Hotel St. Quentin, on our way to the postern. Monsieur took the key out of his doublet, saying as we walked around the corner tower:

"Well, it appears we are safe at home."

"Yes, M. Etienne."

Even as I uttered the words, three men from the shadow of the wall sprang out and seized us.

"This is he!" one cried. "M. le Comte de Mar, I have the pleasure of taking you to the Bastille."



XXVII

The countersign.

Instantly two more men came running from the postern arch. The five were upon us like an avalanche. One pinned my arms while another gagged me. Two held M. Etienne, a third stopping his mouth.

"Prettily done," quoth the leader. "Not a squeal! Morbleu! I wasn't anxious to have old Vigo out disputing my rights."

M. Etienne's wrists were neatly trussed by this time. At a word from the leader, our captors turned us about and marched us up the lane by Mirabeau's garden, where Bernet's blood lay rusty on the stones. We offered no resistance whatever; we should only have been prodded with a sword-point for our pains. I made out, despite the thickening twilight, the familiar uniform of the burgher guard; M. de Belin, having bagged the wrong bird once, had now caught the right one.