"If monsieur will tell me the little word?" she asked innocently.
He burst into laughter.
"No, no; I am not to be caught so easy as that, my girl."
"Oh, come, monsieur captain," Gilles urged, "many and many a fellow goes in and out of Paris without a passport. The rules are a net to stop big fish and let the small fry go. What harm will it do to my Lord Mayenne, or you, or anybody, if you have the gentleness to let three poor servants through to their dying mother?"
"It desolates me to hear of her extremity," the captain answered, with a fine irony, "but I am here to do my duty. I am thinking, my dear, that you are some great lady's maid?"
He was eying her sharply, suspiciously; she made haste to protest:
"Oh, no, monsieur; I am servant to Mme. Mesnier, the grocer's wife."
"And perhaps you serve in the shop?"
"No, monsieur," she said, not seeing his drift, but on guard against a trap. "No, monsieur; I am never in the shop. I am far too busy with my work. Monsieur does not seem to understand what a servant-lass has to do."
For answer, he took her hand and lifted it to the light, revealing all its smooth whiteness, its dainty, polished nails.
"I think mademoiselle does not understand it, either."
With a little cry, she snatched her hand from him, hiding it in the folds of her kirtle, regarding him with open terror. He softened somewhat at sight of her distress.
"Well, it's none of my business if a lady chooses to be masquerading round the streets at night with a porter and a lackey. I don't know what your purpose is—I don't ask to know. But I'm here to keep my gate, and I'll keep it. Go try to wheedle the officer at the Porte Neuve."
In helpless obedience, glad of even so much leniency, we turned away—to face a tall, grizzled veteran in a colonel's shoulder-straps. With a dragoon at his back, he had come so softly out of a side alley that not even the captain had marked him.
"What's this, Guilbert?" he demanded.
"Some folks seeking to get through the gates, sir. I've just turned them away."
"What were you saying about the Porte Neuve?"
"I said they could go see how that gate is kept. I showed them how this is."
"Why must you pass through at this time of night?" said the commanding officer, civilly. Gilles once again bemoaned the dying mother. The young captain, eager to prove his fidelity, interrupted him:
"I believe that's a fairy-tale, sir. There's something queer about these people. The girl says she is a grocer's servant, and has hands like a duchess's."
The colonel looked at us sharply, neither friendly nor unfriendly. He said in a perfectly neutral manner:
"It is of no consequence whether she be a servant or a duchess—has a mother or not. The point is whether these people have the countersign. If they have it, they can pass, whoever they are."
"They have not," the captain answered at once. "I think you would do well, sir, to demand the lady's name."
Mademoiselle started forward for a bold stroke just as the superior officer demanded of her, "The countersign?" As he said the word, she pronounced distinctly her name:
"Lorance—"
"Enough!" the colonel said instantly. "Pass them through, Guilbert."
The young captain stood in a mull, but no more bewildered than we.
"Mighty queer!" he muttered. "Why didn't she give it to me?"
"Stir yourself, sir!" his superior gave sharp command. "They have the countersign; pass them through."
s the gates clanged into place behind us, Gilles stopped short in his tracks to say, as if addressing the darkness before him:
"Am I, Gilles, awake or asleep? Are we in Paris, or are we on the St. Denis road?"
"Oh, come, come!" Mademoiselle hastened us on, murmuring half to herself as we went: "O you kind saints! I saw he could not make us out for friends or foes; I thought my name might turn the scale. Mayenne always gives a name for a countersign; to-night, by a marvel, it was mine!"
I like not to think often of that five-mile tramp to St. Denis. The road was dark, rutty, and in places still miry from Monday night's rain. Strange shadows dogged us all the way. Sometimes they were only bushes or wayside shrines, but sometimes they moved. This was not now a wolf country, but two-footed wolves were plenty, and as dangerous. The hangers-on of the army—beggars, feagues, and footpads—hovered, like the cowardly beasts of prey they were, about the outskirts of the city. Did a leaf rustle, we started; did a shambling shape in the gloom whine for alms, we made ready for onset. Gilles produced from some place of concealment—his jerkin, or his leggings, or somewhere—a brace of pistols, and we walked with finger on trigger, taking care, whenever a rustle in the grass, a shadow in the bushes, seemed to follow us, to talk loud and cheerfully of common things, the little interests of a humble station. Thanks to this diplomacy, or the pistol-barrels shining in the faint starlight, none molested us, though we encountered more than one mysterious company. We never passed into the gloom under an arch of trees without the resolution to fight for our lives. We never came out again into the faint light of the open road without wondering thanks to the saints—silent thanks, for we never spoke a word of any fear, Gilles and I. I trow mademoiselle knew well enough, but she spoke no word either. She never faltered, never showed by so much as the turn of her head that she suspected any danger, but, eyes on the distant lights of St. Denis, walked straight along, half a step ahead of us all the way. Stride as we might, we two strong fellows could never quite keep up with her.
The journey could not at such pace stretch out forever. Presently the distant lights were no longer distant, but near, nearer, close at hand—the lights of the outposts of the camp. A sentinel started out from the quoin of a wall to stop us, but when we had told our errand he became as friendly as a brother. He went across the road into a neighbouring tournebride to report to the officer of the guard, and came back presently with a torch and the order to take us to the Duke of St. Quentin's lodging.
It was near an hour after midnight, and St. Denis was in bed. Save for a drowsy patrol here and there, we met no one. Fewer than the patrols were the lanterns hung on ropes across the streets; these were the only lights, for the houses were one and all as dark as tombs. Not till we had reached the middle of the town did we see, in the second story of a house in the square, a beam of light shining through the shutter-chink.
"Some one in mischief." Gilles pointed.
"Aye," laughed the sentry, "your duke. This is where he lodges, over the saddler's."
He knocked with the butt of his musket on the door. The shutter above creaked open, and a voice—Monsieur's voice—asked, "Who's there?"
Mademoiselle was concealed in the embrasure of the doorway; Gilles and I stepped back into the street where Monsieur could see us.
"Gilles Forestier and Félix Broux, Monsieur, just from Paris, with news."
"Wait."
"Is it all right, M. le Duc?" the sentry asked, saluting.
"Yes," Monsieur answered, closing the shutter.
The soldier, with another salute to the blank window, and a nod of "Good-by, then," to us, went back to his post. Left in darkness, we presently heard Monsieur's quick step on the flags of the hall, and the clatter of the bolts. He opened to us, standing there fully dressed, with a guttering candle.
"My son?" he said instantly.
Mademoiselle, crouching in the shadow of the door-post, pushed me forward. I saw I was to tell him.
"Monsieur, he was arrested and driven to the Bastille to-night between seven and eight. Lucas—Paul de Lorraine—went to the governor and swore that M. Étienne killed the lackey Pontou in the house in the Rue Coupejarrets. It was Lucas killed him—Lucas told Mayenne so. Mlle. de Montluc heard him, too. And here is mademoiselle."
At the word she came out of the shadow and slowly over the threshold.
Her alarm and passion had swept her to the door of the Hôtel St. Quentin as a whirlwind sweeps a leaf. She had come without thought of herself, without pause, without fear. But now the first heat of her impulse was gone. Her long tramp had left her faint and weary, and here she had to face not an equery and a page, hers to command, but a great duke, the enemy of her house. She came blushfully in her peasant dress, shoes dirty from the common road, hair ruffled by the night winds, to show herself for the first time to her lover's father, opposer of her hopes, thwarter of her marriage. Proud and shy, she drifted over the door-sill and stood a moment, neither lifting her eyes nor speaking, like a bird whom the least movement would startle into flight.
But Monsieur made none. He kept as still, as tongue-tied, as she, looking at her as if he could hardly believe her presence real. Then as the silence prolonged itself, it seemed to frighten her more than the harsh speech she may have feared; with a desperate courage she raised her eyes to his face.
The spell was broken. Monsieur stepped forward at once to her.
"Mademoiselle, you have come a journey. You are tired. Let me give you some refreshment; then will you tell me the story."
It was an unlucky speech, for she had been on the very point of unburdening herself; but now, without a word, she accepted his escort down the passage. But as she went, she flung me an imploring glance; I was to come too. Gilles bolted the door again, and sat down to wait on the staircase; but I, though my lord had not bidden me, followed him and mademoiselle. It troubled me that she should so dread him—him, the warmest-hearted of all men. But if she needed me to give her confidence, here I was.
Monsieur led her into a little square parlour at the end of the passage. It was just behind the shop, I knew, it smelt so of leather. It was doubtless the sitting-and eating-room of the saddler's family. Monsieur set his candle down on the big table in the middle; then, on second thought, took it up again and lighted two iron sconces on the wall.
"Pray sit, mademoiselle, and rest," he bade, for she was starting up in nervousness from the chair where he had put her. "I will return in a moment."
When he had gone from the room, I said to her, half hesitating, yet eagerly:
"Mademoiselle, you were never afraid on the way, where there was good cause for fear. But now there is nothing to dread."
She rose and fluttered round the walls of the room, looking for something. I thought it was for a way of escape, but it was not, for she passed the three doors and came back to her place with an air of disappointment, smoothing the loose strands of her hair.
"I never before went anywhere unmasked," she murmured.
Monsieur entered with a salver containing a silver cup of wine and some Rheims biscuit. He offered it to her formally; she accepted with scarcely audible thanks, and sat, barely touching the wine to her lips, crumbling the biscuit into bits with restless fingers, making the pretence of a meal serve as excuse for her silence. Monsieur glanced at her, puzzled-wise, waiting for her to speak. Had the Infanta Isabella come to visit him, he could not have been more surprised. It seemed to him discourteous to press her; he waited for her to explain her presence.
I wanted to shake mademoiselle. With a dozen swift words, with a glance of her blue eyes, she could sweep Monsieur off his feet as she had swept Vigo. And instead, she sat there, not daring to look at him, like a child caught stealing sweets. She had found words to defend herself from the teasing tongues at the Hôtel de Lorraine, to plead for me, to lash Lucas, to move Mayenne himself; but she could not find one syllable for the Duke of St. Quentin. She had been to admiration the laughing coquette, the stout champion, the haughty great lady, the frank lover; but now she was the shy child, blushing, stammering, constrained.
Had Monsieur attacked her with blunt questions, had he demanded of her up and down what had brought her this strange road at such amazing hour and in such unfitting company, she must needs have answered, and, once started, she would quickly have kindled her fire again. Had he, on other part, with a smile, an encouraging word, given her ever so little a push, she had gone on easily enough. But he did neither. He was courteous and cold. Partly was his coldness real; he could not look on her as other than the daughter of his enemy's house, ward of the man who had schemed to kill him, will-o'-the-wisp who had lured his son to disaster. Partly was it mere absence; M. Étienne's plight was more to him than mademoiselle's. When she spoke not, he turned impatiently to me.
"Tell me, Félix, all about it."
Before I could answer him the door behind us opened to admit two gentlemen, shoulder to shoulder. They were dressed much alike, plainly, in black. One was about thirty years of age, tall, thin-faced, and dark, and of a gravity and dignity beyond his years. Living was serious business to him; his eyes were thoughtful, steady, and a little cold. His companion was some ten years older; his beard and curling hair, worn away from his forehead by the helmet's chafing, were already sprinkled with gray. He had a great beak of a nose and dark-gray eyes, as keen as a hawk's, and a look of amazing life and vim. The air about him seemed to tingle with it. We had all done something, we others; we were no shirks or sluggards: but the force in him put us out, penny candles before the sun. I deem not Jeanne the Maid did any marvel when she recognized King Charles at Chinon. Here was I, a common lout, never heard a heavenly voice in all my days, yet I knew in the flick of an eye that this was Henri Quatre.
I was hot and cold and trembling, my heart pounding till it was like to choke me. I had never dreamed of finding myself in the presence. I had never thought to face any man greater than my duke. For the moment I was utterly discomfited. Then I bethought me that not for God alone were knees given to man, and I slid down quietly to the floor, hoping I did right, but reflecting for my comfort that in any case I was too small to give great offence.
Mademoiselle started out of her chair and swept a curtsey almost to the ground, holding the lowly pose like a lady of marble. Only Monsieur remained standing as he was, as if a king was an every-day affair with him. I always thought Monsieur a great man, but now I knew it.
The king, leaving his companion to close the door, was across the room in three strides.
"I am come to look after you, St. Quentin," he cried, laughing. "I cannot have my council broken up by pretty grisettes. The precedent is dangerous."
With the liveliest curiosity and amusement he surveyed the top of mademoiselle's bent head, and Monsieur's puzzled, troubled countenance.
"This is no grisette, Sire," Monsieur answered, "but a very high-born demoiselle indeed—cousin to my Lord Mayenne."
Astonishment flashed over the king's mobile face; his manner changed in an instant to one of utmost deference.
"Rise, mademoiselle," he begged, as if her appearance were the most natural and desirable thing in the world. "I could wish it were my good adversary Mayenne himself who was come to treat with us; but be assured his cousin shall lack no courtesy."
She swayed lightly to her feet, raising her face to the king's. Into his countenance, which mirrored his emotions like a glass, came a quick delight at the sight of her. The colour waxed and waned in her cheeks; her breath fluttered uncertainly; her eyes, anxious, eager, searched his face.
"I cry your Majesty's good pardon," she faltered. "I had urgent business with M. de St. Quentin—I did not guess he was with your Majesty—"
"The king's business is glad to step aside for yours, mademoiselle."
She curtseyed, blushing, hiding her eyes under their sooty lashes; thinking as I did, I made no doubt, here was a king indeed. His Majesty went on:
"I can well believe, mademoiselle, 'tis no trifling matter brings you at midnight to our rough camp. We will not delay you further, but be at pains to remember that if in anything Henry of France can aid you he stands at your command."
He made her a noble bow and took her hand to kiss, when she, like a child that sees itself losing a protector, clutched his hand in her little trembling fingers, her wet eyes fixed imploringly on his face. He beamed upon her; he felt no desire whatever to be gone.
"Am I to stay?" he asked radiantly; then with grave gentleness he added: "Mademoiselle is in trouble. Will she bring her trouble to the king? That is what a king is for—to ease his subjects' burdens."
She could not speak; she made him her obeisance with a look out of the depths of her soul.
"Then are you my subject, mademoiselle?" he demanded slyly.
She shook the tears from her lashes, and found her voice and her smile to answer his:
"Sire, I was a true Ligueuse this morning. But I came here half Navarraise, and now I swear I am wholly one."
"Now, that is good hearing!" the king cried. "Such a recruit from Mayenne! Also is it heartening to discover that my conversion is not the only sudden one in the world. It has taken me five months to turn my coat, but here is mademoiselle turns hers in a day."
He had glanced over his shoulder to point this out to his gentleman, but now he faced about in time to catch his recruit looking triste again.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "you are beautiful, grave; but, as you had the graciousness to show me just now, still more beautiful, smiling. Now we are going to arrange matters so that you will smile always. Will you tell me what is the trouble, my child?"
"Gladly, Sire," she answered, and dropped down a moment on her knees before him, to kiss his hand.
I marvelled that Mayenne and all his armies had been able to keep this man off his throne and in his saddle four long years. It was plain why his power grew stronger every day, why every hour brought him new allies from the ranks of the League. You had only to see him to adore him. Once get him into Paris, the struggle would be over. They would put up with no other for king.
"Sire," mademoiselle said with hesitancy, "I shall tire you with my story."
"I am greatly in dread of it," the king answered, ceremoniously placing her in a chair before seating himself to listen. Then, to give her a moment, I think, to collect herself, he turned to his companion:
"Here, Rosny, if you ache to be grubbing over your papers, do not let us delay you."
"I am in no haste, Sire," his gentleman answered, unmoving.
"Which is to say, you dare not leave me alone," the king laughed out. "I tell you, St. Quentin, if I am not dragooned into a staid, discreet, steady-paced monarch, 'twill be no lapse of Whip-King Rosny's. I am listening, mademoiselle."
She began at once, eager and unfaltering. All her confusion was gone. It had been well-nigh impossible to tell the story to M. de St. Quentin, impossible to tell it to this impassive M. de Rosny. But to the King of France and Navarre it was as easy to talk as to one's playfellow.
"Sire, I am Lorance de Montluc. My grandfather was the Marshal Montluc."
"Were to-day next Monday, I could pray, 'God rest his soul,'" the king rejoined. "But even a heretic may say that he was a gallant general, an honour to France. He married a sister of François le Balafré? And mademoiselle is orphaned now, and my friend Mayenne's ward?"
"Yes, Sire. I came here, Sire, to tell M. de St. Quentin concerning his son. And though I am talking of myself, it is all the same story. Three years ago, after the king died, M. de Mayenne was endeavouring with all his might to bring the Duke of St. Quentin into the League. He offered me to him for his son, M. de Mar."
"And you are still Mlle. de Montluc?"
She turned to Monsieur with the prettiest smile in the world.
"M. de St. Quentin, though he has not fought for you, Sire, has ever been whole-heartedly loyal."
"Ventre-saint-gris!" the king exclaimed. "He is either an incredible loyalist or an incredible ass!"
Even the grave Rosny smiled, and the victim laughed as he defended himself.
"That my loyalty may be credible, Sire, I make haste to say that I had never seen mademoiselle till this hour."
"I know not whether to think better of you for that, or worse," the king retorted. "Had I been in your place, beshrew me but I should have seen her."
Monsieur smiled and was silent, with anxious eyes on mademoiselle.
"M. de St. Quentin withdrew to Picardie, Sire, but M. de Mar stayed in Paris. And my cousin Mayenne never gave up entirely the notion of the marriage. He is very tenacious of his plans."
"Aye," said the king, with a grimace. "Well I know."
"He blew hot and cold with M. de Mar. He favoured the marriage on Sunday and scouted it on Wednesday and discussed it again on Friday."
"And what were M. de Mar's opinions?"
She met his probing gaze blushing but candid.
"M. de Mar, Sire, favoured it every day in the week."
"I'll swear he did!" the king cried.
"When M. le Duc came back to Paris," mademoiselle went on, "and it was known he had espoused your cause, Sire, Mayenne was so loath to lose the whole house of St. Quentin to you that he offered to marry me out of hand to M. de Mar. And he refused."
"Ventre-saint-gris!" Henry cried. "We will marry you to a king's son. On my honour, mademoiselle—"
"Sire," she pleaded, "you promised to hear me."
"That I will, then. But I warn you I am out of patience with these St. Quentins."
"Then you are out of patience with devotion to your cause, Sire."
"What! you speak for the recreants?"
"I assure you, Sire, you have no more loyal servant than M. de Mar."
"Strange I cannot recollect the face of my so loyal servant," the king said dryly.
But she, with a fine scorn of argument, made the audacious answer:
"When you see it, you will like it, Sire."
"Not half so well as I like yours, mademoiselle, I promise you! But he comes to me well commended, since you vouch for him. Or rather, he does not come. What is this ardent follower doing so long away from me? Where the devil does this eager partizan keep himself? St. Quentin, where is your son?"
"He had been with you long ago, Sire, but for the bright eyes of a lady of the League. And now she comes to tell me—my page tells me—he is in the Bastille."
"Ventre-saint-gris! And how has that calamity befallen?"
She hesitated a moment, embarrassed by her very wealth of matter, confused between her longing to set the whole case before the king, and her fear of wearying his patience. But his glance told her she need have no misgiving. Had she come to present him Paris, he could not have been more interested.
In the little silence Monsieur found his moment and his words.
"Sire, may I interrupt mademoiselle? Last night, for the first time in a month, I saw my son. He was just returned from an adventure under her window. Mayenne's guard had set on him, and he was escaped by the skin of his teeth. He declared to me that never till he was slain should he cease endeavour to win Mlle. de Montluc. And I? Marry, I ate my words in humblest fashion. After three years I made my surrender. Since you are his one desire, mademoiselle, then are you my one desire. I bade him God-speed."
She gave her hand to Monsieur, sudden tears welling over her lashes.
"Monsieur, I thought to-night I had no friends. And I have so many!"
"Mademoiselle," the king cried in the same breath, "fear not. I will get you your lover if I sell France for him."
She brushed the tears away and smiled on him.
"I have no fear, Sire. With you and M. de St. Quentin to save him, I can have no fear. But he is in desperate case. Has M. de St. Quentin told you of his secretary Lucas, my cousin Paul de Lorraine?"
"Aye," said the king, "it is a dolourous topic—very painful! Eh, Rosny?"
"I do not shrink from my pains, Sire," M. de Rosny answered quietly. "I hold myself much to blame in this matter. I thought I knew the Lucases root and branch—I did not discover that a daughter of the house had ever been a friend to Henri de Guise."
"And how should you discover it?" the king demanded. He had made the attack; now, since Rosny would not resent it, he rushed himself to the defence. "How were you to dream it? Henri de Guise's side was the last place to look for a girl of the Religion. But I forgive him. If he stole a Rochelaise, we have avenged it deep: we have stolen the flower of Lorraine."
"Paul Lucas—Paul de Lorraine," she went on eagerly, "was put into M. le Duc's house to kill him. He went all the more willingly that he believed M. de Mar to be my favoured suitor. He tried to draw M. de Mar into the scheme, to ruin him. He failed. And the whole plot came to naught."
"I have learned that," the king said. "I have been told how a country boy stripped his mask off."
He glanced around suddenly at me where I stood red and abashed. He was so quick that he grasped everything at half a word. Instantly he had turned to the lady again. "Pray continue, dear mademoiselle."
"Afterward—that is, yesterday—Paul went to M. de Belin and swore against M. de Mar that he had murdered a lackey in his house in the Rue Coupejarrets. The lackey was murdered there, but Paul de Lorraine did it. The man knew the plot; Paul killed him to stop his tongue. I heard him confess it to M. de Mayenne. I and this Félix Broux were in the oratory and heard it."
"Then M. de Mar was arrested?"
"Not then. The officers missed him. To-day he came to our house, dressed as an Italian jeweller, with a case of trinkets to sell. Madame admitted him; no one knew him but me and my chamber-*mate. On the way out, Mayenne met him and kept him while he chose a jewel. Paul de Lorraine was there too. I was like to die of fear. I went in to M. de Mayenne; I begged him to come out with me to supper, to dismiss the tradespeople that I might talk with him there—anything. But it availed not. M. de Mayenne spoke freely before them, as one does before common folk. Presently he led me to supper. Paul was left alone with M. de Mar and the boy. He recognized them. He was armed, and they were not, but they overbore him and locked him up in the closet."
"Mordieu, mademoiselle! I was to rescue M. de Mar for your sake, but now I will do it for his own. I find him much to my liking. He came away clear, mademoiselle?"
"Aye, to be seized in the street by the governor's men. When M. de Mayenne found how he had been tricked, Sire, he blazed with rage."
"I'll warrant he did!" the king answered, suppressing, however, in deference to her distress, his desire to laugh. "Ventre-saint-gris, mademoiselle! forgive me if this amuses me here at St. Denis. I trow it was not amusing in the Hôtel de Lorraine."
"He sent for me, Sire," she went on, blanching at the memory; "he accused me of shielding M. de Mar. It was true. He called me liar, traitor, wanton. He said I was false to my house, to my bread, to my honour. He said I had smiling lips and a Judas-heart—that I had kissed him and betrayed him. I had given him my promise never to hold intercourse with M. de Mar again, I had given my word to be true to my house. M. de Mar came by no will of mine. I had no inkling of such purpose till I beheld him before madame and her ladies. He came to entreat me to fly—to wed him. I denied him, Sire. I sent him away. But was I to say to the guard, 'This way, gentlemen. This is my lover'?"
"Mademoiselle," the king exclaimed, "good hap that you have turned your back on the house of Lorraine. Here, if we are but rough soldiers, we know how to tender you."
"It was not for myself I came," she said more quietly. "My lord had the right to chasten me. I am his ward, and I did deceive him. But while he foamed at me came word of M. de Mar's capture. Then Mayenne swore he should pay for this dear. He said he should be found guilty of the murder. He said plenty of witnesses would swear to it. He said M. de Mar should be tortured to make him confess."
With an oath Monsieur sprang forward.
"Aye," she cried, starting up, "he swore M. de Mar should suffer the preparatory and the previous, the estrapade and the brodekins!"
"He dare not," the king shouted. "Mordieu, he dare not!"
"Sire," she cried, "you can promise him that for every blow he strikes Étienne de Mar you will strike me two. Mar is in his hands, but I am in yours. For M. de Mar, unhurt, you will deliver him me, unhurt. If he torture Mar, you will torture me."
"Mademoiselle," the king cried, "rather shall he torture every chevalier in France than I touch a hair of your head!"
"Sire—" the word died away in a sigh; like a snapt rose she fell at his feet.
The king was quick, but Monsieur quicker. On his knees beside her, raising her head on his arm, he commanded me:
"Up-stairs, Félix! The door at the back—bid Dame Verney come instantly."
I flew, and was back to find him risen, holding mademoiselle in his arms. Her hair lay loose over his shoulder like a rippling flag; her lashes clung to her cheeks as they would never lift more.
"St. Quentin," his Majesty was saying, "I would have married her to a prince. But since she wants your son she shall have him, ventre-saint-gris, if I storm Paris to-morrow!" And as Monsieur was carrying her from the room, the king bent over and kissed her.
"Mademoiselle has dropped a packet from her dress," M. de Rosny said. "Will you take it, St. Quentin?"
The king, who was nearest, turned to pass it to him; at the sight of it he uttered his dear "ventre-saint-gris!" It was a flat, oblong packet, tied about with common twine, the seal cut out. The king twitched the string off, and with one rapid glance at the papers put them into Monsieur's hand.
"Take them, St. Quentin; they are yours."
ademoiselle being given into Dame Verney's motherly hands, Gilles and I were ordered to repose ourselves on the skins in the saddler's shop. Lying there in the malodourous gloom, I could see the crack of light under the door at the back and hear, between Gilles's snores, the murmur of voices. The king and his gentlemen were planning to save my master; I went to sleep in perfect peace.
At daybreak, even before the saddler opened the shop, Monsieur routed us out.
"I'm off for Paris, lads. Félix comes with me. Gilles stays to guard mademoiselle."
I felt not a little injured, deeming that I, whom mademoiselle knew best, should not be the one chosen to stay by her. But the sting passed quickly. After all, Paris was likely to be more exciting than St. Denis.
The day being Friday, we delayed not to eat, but straightway mounted the two nags that a sunburnt Béarn pikeman had brought to the door. As we walked them gently across the square, which at this rath hour we alone shared with the twittering birds, we saw coming down one of the empty streets the hurrying figure of M. de Rosny. My lord drew rein at once.
"You are no slugabed, St. Quentin," the young councillor called. "I deserved to miss you. Fear not! I come not to hinder you, but to wish you God-speed."
"Now, this is kind, Rosny," Monsieur answered, grasping his hand. "The more that you don't approve me."
Rosny smiled, like a sudden burst of sunshine in a December day. Another man's embrace would have meant less.
"I approve you so much, St. Quentin, that I cannot composedly see you putting your head into the lion's jaws."
"My head is used to the pillow. Do the teeth close, I am no worse off than my son."
"Your death makes your son's no easier."
"Why, what else to do, Rosny?" Monsieur exclaimed. "Mishandle the lady? Storm Paris? Sell the Cause?"
"I would we could storm Paris," Rosny sighed. "It would suit me better to seize the prisoner than to sue for him. But Paris is not ripe for us yet. You know my plan—to send to Villeroi. I believe he could manage this thing."
"I am second to none," Monsieur said politely, "in my admiration of M. de Villeroi's abilities. But to reach him is uncertain; what he can or will do, uncertain. Étienne de Mar is not Villeroi's son; he is mine."
"Aye, it is your business," Rosny assented. "It is yours to take your way."
"A mad way, but mine. But come, now, Rosny, you must admit that once or twice, when all your wiseacres were deadlocked, my madness has served."
Rosny took Monsieur's hand in a silent grip.
"Maximilien," the duke said, smiling down on him, "what a pity you are a scamp of a heretic!"
"Henri," Rosny returned gravely, "I would you had had the good fortune to be born in the Religion."
Again he wished us God-speed, and we gathered up our reins. As we turned the corner I glanced back to find him still standing as we had left him, gazing soberly after us.
The man who was going into the lion's den was far less solemn over it. By fits and starts, as he thought on his son's great danger, he contrived a gloomy countenance: but Monsieur had ridden all his life with Hope on the pillion; she did not desert him now. As we cantered steadily along in the fresh, cool morning, he already pictured M. Étienne released. However mad he acknowledged his errand to be, I think he was scarce visited by a doubt of its success. It was impossible to him that his son should not be saved.
We entered with perfect ease the gate of Paris, and took our way without hesitancy through the busiest streets. Nowhere did the guard spring on us, but, instead, more than once, the passers-by gathered in knots, the tradesmen and artisans ran out of their shops to cheer St. Quentin, to cheer France, to cheer peace, to cheer to the echo the Catholic king.
"I hope Mayenne hears them," Monsieur said to me, doffing his hat to a big farrier who had come out of his smithy waving impudently in the eye of all the world the white flag of the king.
We kept a brisk pace alike where they cheered us and where, in other streets, they scowled and hooted at us, so that I looked out for men with pistols in second-story windows. But, friend or foe, none stopped us till at length we drew rein before the grilles of the Hôtel de Lorraine.
They made no demur at admitting us. Monsieur went into the house, while I led the horses to the stables, where three or four grooms at once volunteered to rub them down, in eagerness to pump their guardian. But before the fellows had had time to get much out of me came Jean Marchand, all unrecognizing, to summon me indoors. I followed him in delight, partly for curiosity, partly because it had seemed to me when the doorway swallowed Monsieur that I might never see him more. Jean ushered me into the well-remembered council-room, where Monsieur stood alone, surprised at the sight of me.
"A lackey came for me," I said. "Look, Monsieur, that's where we shut up Lucas."
I ceased hastily, for I knew the step in the corridor.
It was difficult to credit mademoiselle's tale, to believe that Mayenne could ever be in a rage. In he came, big and calm and smiling, whatever emotion he may have felt at Monsieur's arrival not only buried, but with a flower-bed blooming over it. He greeted his guest with all the courteous ease of an unruffled conscience and a kindly heart. Not till his glance fell on me did he show any sign of discomposure.
"What, you!" he exclaimed brusquely.
"Your servant brought him hither," Monsieur said for me.
"I understood that one of your gentlemen had come with you. I sent for him, deeming his presence might conduce to your ease, M. de St. Quentin."
"I am at my ease, M. de Mayenne," my lord answered, with every appearance of truth. "You may go, Félix."
"No," said Mayenne. "Since he is here, he may stay. He serves the purpose as well as another."
He did not say what the purpose was, nor could I see for what he had kept me, unless as a sign to Monsieur that he meant to play fair. I began to feel somewhat heartened.
"You have guessed, M. de Mayenne, my errand?"
"Certainly. You have come to join the League."
Monsieur laughed out.
"On the contrary, M. de Mayenne, I have come to persuade you to join the King."
"That was a waste of horse-flesh."
"My friend, you know as well as we do that before long you will come over."
"I am not there yet, nor are my enemies scattered, nor is the League dead."
"Dying, my lord. It will get its coup de grâce o' Sunday, when the king goes to mass."
"St. Quentin," Mayenne made quiet answer, "when I am in such case that nothing remains to me but to fall on my sword or to kneel to Henry, be assured I shall kneel to Henry. Till then I play my game."
"Play it, then. We have the patience to wait for you, monsieur. Be assured, in your turn, that when you do come on your knees to his Majesty you will do well to have a friend or two at court."
"Morbleu," Mayenne cried, suddenly showing his teeth, "you will never go back to him if I choose to stop you!"
Monsieur raised his eyebrows at him, pained by the unsuavity.
"Of course not, monsieur. I quite understood that when I entered the gate. I shall never leave this house if you will otherwise."
"You will leave the house unharmed," Mayenne said curtly. "I shall not treat you as your late master treated my brother."
"I thank your generosity, monsieur, and commend your good sense."
Mayenne looked for a moment as if he repented of both. Then he broke into a laugh.
"One permits the insolences of the court jester."
Monsieur sprang up, his hand on his sword. But at once the quick flush passed from his face, and he, too, laughed.
Mayenne sat as he was, in somewhat lowering silence. My duke made a step nearer him, and spoke for the first time with perfect seriousness.
"My Lord Mayenne, it was no outrecuidance brought me here this morning. There is the Bastille. There is the axe. I know that my course has been offensive to you—your nephew proved me that. I know also that you do not care to meddle with me openly. At least, you have not meddled. Whether you will change your method—but I venture to believe not. I am popular just now in Paris. I had more cheers as I came in this morning than have met your ears for many a month. You have a great name for prudence, M. de Mayenne; I believe you will not molest me."
I hardly thought my duke was making a great name for prudence. But then, as he said, he had to work in his own way. Mayenne returned, with chilling calm:
"You may find me, St. Quentin, less timid than you suppose."
"Impossible. Mayenne's courage is unquestioned. I rely not on his timidity, but on his judgment."
"You take a great deal upon yourself in supposing that I wanted your death on Tuesday and do not want it on Friday."
"The king is three days nearer the true faith than on Tuesday. His party is three days stronger. On Tuesday it would have been a blunder to kill me; on Friday it is three days worse a blunder."
"But not less a pleasure. I have had something of the kind in mind ever since your master killed my brother."
"You should profit by that murderer's experience before you take a leaf from his book, M. de Mayenne. Henry of Valois gained singularly little when he slew Guise to make you head of the League."
Mayenne started, and then laughed to show his scorn of the flattery. But I think he was, all the same, half pleased, none the less because he knew it to be flattery. He said unexpectedly:
"Your son comes honestly by his unbound tongue."
"Ah, my son! Now that you mention him, we shall discuss him a little. You have put my son, monsieur, in the Bastille."
"No; Belin and my nephew Paul, whom you know, have put him there."
"But M. de Mayenne can get him out if he choose."
"If he choose."
Monsieur sat down again, with the air of one preparing for an amiable discussion.
"He is charged with the murder of one Pontou, a lackey. Of course he did not commit it, nor would you care if he had. His real offence is making love to your ward."
"Well, do you deny it?"
"Not the love, but the offence of it. Palpably you might do much worse than dispose of the lady to my heir."
"I might do much better than bestow my time on you if that is all you have to say."
"We have hardly opened the subject, M. de Mayenne—"
"I have no wish to carry it further."
"Monsieur, the king's ranks afford no better match than my heir."
"No maid of mine shall ever marry a Royalist."
"I swore no son of mine should ever marry a Leaguer, but I have come to see the error of my ways, as you will see yours, Mayenne. It is for you to choose where among the king's forces you will marry mademoiselle."
A vague uneasiness, a fear which he would not own a fear, crept into Mayenne's eyes. He studied the face before him, a face of gay challenge, and said, at length, not quite confidently himself:
"You speak with a confidence, St. Quentin."
"Why, to be sure."
Mayenne jumped heavily to his feet.
"What mean you?"
"I mean that mademoiselle's marrying is in my hands. Where is your ward, M. de Mayenne?"
"Mordieu! Have you found her?"
"You speak sooth."
"In your hôtel—"
"No, eager kinsman. In a place whither you cannot follow her."
Mayenne looked about, as if with some instinctive idea of seeking a weapon, of summoning his soldiers.
"By God's throne, you shall tell me where!"
"With pleasure. She is at St. Denis."
Mayenne cried helplessly, as numbed under a blow:
"St. Denis! But how—"
"How came she there? On foot, every step. I suppose she never walked two streets in her life before, has she, M. de Mayenne? But she tramped to St. Denis through the dark, to knock at my door at one in the morning."
Mayenne seized Monsieur's wrist.
"She is safe, St. Quentin? She is safe?"
"As safe, monsieur, as the king's protection can make her."
"Pardieu! Is she with the king?"
"She is at my lodgings, in the care of the saddler's wife who lets them. I left a staunch man in charge—I have no doubt of him."
"You answer for her safety?" Mayenne cried huskily; his breath coming short. He was flushed, the veins in his forehead corded.
"When she came last night, it happened that the king was there," Monsieur went on. "Her loveliness and her misery moved him to the heart."
"Thousand thunders of heaven! You, with your son, shall be hostages for her safe return."
"The king," Monsieur went on, as immovably as Mayenne himself at his best, "with that warm heart of his pitying beauty in distress, is eager for mademoiselle's marriage with her lover Mar. But he did not favour my venture here; he called it a silly business. He said you would clap me in jail, and he told me flat I might rot my life out there before he would give up to you Mlle. de Montluc."
"Well, then, pardieu, we'll try if he means it!"
"He gave me to understand that he meant it. The St. Quentins out of the way, there is Valère, stout Kingsman, to succeed. The king loses little."
"Then are you gone mad that you put yourself in my grasp?"
"I was never saner. I come, my friend, to make you listen to sanity."
I had waited from moment to moment Mayenne's summons to his soldiers. But he had not rung, and now he flung himself down again in his arm-chair.
"What, to your understanding, is sanity?"
"If you send me to join my son, monsieur, you leave mademoiselle without a protector, friendless, penniless, in the midst of a hostile army cursing the name of Mayenne. Have you reared her delicately, tenderly, for that?"
Mayenne sat silent, his face a mask. It was impossible to tell whether the shot hit. Monsieur went on:
"You can of course hold us in durance, torture us, kill us; but you must answer for it to the people of Paris."
Still was Mayenne silent, drumming on the edge of the table. Finally he said roughly, as if the words were dragged from him against his will:
"I shall not torture you. I never meant to torture Mar. The arrest was not my work. Since it was done, I meant to profit by it to keep him awhile out of my way—only that. I threatened my cousin otherwise in heat of passion. But I shall not torture him. I shall not kill him."
"Monsieur—"
"I put a card in your hand," Mayenne said curtly. His pride ill brooked to concede the point, but he could not have it supposed that he did not see what he was doing. "I give you a card. Do what you can with it."
"Monsieur, you show what little surprises me—knightly generosity. It is to that generosity I appeal."
"Is the horse of that colour? But now you were frightening my prudence."
"Ah, but how fortunate the man to whom generosity and prudence point the same path!"
It may have been but pretence, this smiling bonhomie of Monsieur's. Mayenne doubtless gauged it as such, but, at any rate, he suffered it to warm him. He regained of a sudden all the amiability with which he had greeted his guest. Smiling and calm, he answered:
"St. Quentin, I care little for either your threats or your cajoleries. They amuse me alike, and move me not. But I have a care for my sweet cousin. Since you threaten me with her danger, you have the whiphand."
Now it was Monsieur's turn to sit discreetly silent, waiting.
"I went last night to tell the child I would not harm her lover. Lo! she had flown. I had a regiment searching Paris for her. I was in the streets myself till dawn."
"Monsieur, she made her way to us at St. Denis to offer herself to our torture did you torture Mar."
"Morbleu!" Mayenne cried, half rising.
"God's mercy, we're not ruffians out there! I tell it to show you to what the maid was strung."
"I never thought it great matter whom one married," Mayenne said slowly: "one boy is much like another. I should have mated her as befitted her station—I thought she would be happy enough. And she was good about it: I did not see how deep she cared. She was docile till I drove her too hard. She's a loving child. You are fortunate in your daughter, St. Quentin."
Monsieur sprang up radiant, advancing on him open-armed. Mayenne added, with his cool smile:
"You need not flatter yourself, Monsieur, that it is your doing. I laugh at your threats. 'Twere sport to me to clap you behind bars, to say to your king, to the mob you brag of, 'Come, now, get him out.'"
"Then," cried Monsieur, "I must value my sweet daughter more than ever."
He was standing over Mayenne with outstretched hand, but the chief delayed taking it.
"Not quite so fast, my friend. If I yield up the Duc de St. Quentin, the Comte de Mar, and Mlle. Lorance de Montluc, I demand certain little concessions for myself."
"By all means, monsieur. You stamp us churls else."
My duke sat again, his smile a shade uneasy. Which Mayenne perceived with quiet enjoyment, as he went on blandly: "Nothing that I could ask of you, M. de St. Quentin, could equal, could halve, what I give. Still, that the knightliness may not be, to your mortification, all on one side, I have thought of something for you to grant."
"Name it, monsieur."
"Another point in your favour I had forgot," Mayenne observed, with his usual reluctance to show his cards even when the time had come to spread them. "Last night I laid on this table a packet, just arrived, which I was told belonged to you. When I had time to think of it again, it had vanished. I accused my lackeys, but later it occurred to me that Mlle. de Montluc, arming for battle, had purloined it."
"Your shrewdness does you credit."
"You see you have scored a fourth point, though again by no prowess of your own. Therefore am I emboldened to demand what I want."
"Even to half my fortune—"
"No, not your gear. Save that for your Béarnais's itching palm."
"Then what the devil is it you want? You will not get my name in the League."
"I am glad my nephew Paul bungled that affair of his," Mayenne went on at his own pace. "It might have been a blunder to kill you; it had certainly been a pity. Though we Lorraines have two murders to avenge, I have changed my mind about beginning with yours."
"You are wise, monsieur. I am, after all, a harmless creature."
Mayenne laughed.
"Natheless have you done your best here in Paris to undermine me. Did I let you carry on your little works unhindered, they might in time annoy me. Therefore I request that so long as I stay in Paris you stay out."
"Oh, I don't like that!"
The naïveté amazed while it amused Mayenne.
"Possibly not, but you will consent to it. You will ride out of my court, when we have finished some necessary signing of papers, straight to the St. Denis gate. And you will pledge me your honour to make no attempt hereafter to enter so long as the city is mine."
Mayenne was smiling broadly, Monsieur frowning. He relished the condition little. He was enjoying himself much in Paris, his dangers, his successes, his biting his thumb at the power of the League. To be killed at his post was nothing, but to be bundled away from it to inglorious safety, that stuck in his gorge. For a moment he actually hesitated. Then he began to laugh at his own hesitation.
"Well, ma foi! what do I expect? To walk, a rabbit, into the lion's den and make my own terms to Leo? I am happy to accept yours, M. de Mayenne, especially since, do I refuse, you will none the less pack me off."
"You mistake, St. Quentin. You are welcome to spend the rest of your days with me."
"In the Bastille?"
"Or in the League."
"The former is preferable."
"You may count yourself thrice fortunate, then, that a third alternative is given you."
"It needs not the reminder. You have treated me as a prince indeed. Be assured the St. Quentins will not forget."
"Every one forgets."
"Perhaps. But when you need our good offices we shall not have had time to forget."
"Pardieu, St. Quentin, you have good courage to tell me to my head my course is run!"
"My dear Mayenne, none punishes the maunderings of the court jester."
Monsieur laughed out with a gay gusto; after a moment Mayenne laughed too. My duke cried quickly, rising and walking the length of the table to his host:
"You have dealt with me munificently, Mayenne. You have kept back but one thing I want. That is yourself. You know you must come over to us sooner or later. Come now!"
The other did not flame out at Monsieur, but answered coldly:
"I have no taste to be Navarre's vassal."
"Better his than Spain's."
Mayenne shrugged his shoulders, his face at its stolidest.
"Well, I am no astrologer to read the future."
Monsieur laid an emphatic hand on his host's shoulder.
"But I read it, my friend. I see a French land under a French king, a Catholic and a gallant fellow, faithful to old friends, friendly to old foes. I see the dear land at peace at last, the looms humming, the mills clacking, wheat growing thick on the battle-fields."
Mayenne looked up with a grim smile.
"I have still a field or two to water for that wheat. My compliments to your new master, St. Quentin; you may tell him from me that when I submit, I submit. When I have made my surrender, from that hour forth am I his hound to lick his hand, to guard and obey him. Till then, let him beware of my teeth! While I have one pikeman to my back, one sou in my pouch, I fight my cause."
"And when you have none, you yet have three pairs of hands at Henry's court to pull you up out of the mire."
"I thank their graciousness, though I shall never need their offices," Mayenne said grandly. He stood there stately and proud and confident, the picture of princeliness and strength. Last night at St. Denis it had seemed to me that no power could defy my king. Now it seemed to me that no king could nick the power of my Lord Mayenne. When suddenly, precisely like a mummer who in his great moment winks at you to let you know it is make-believe, the general-duke's dignity melted into a smile.
"After all," he said, "it's as well to lay an anchor to windward."