The Suitors of Yvonne
Rafael Sabatini


Being a Portion of the Memoirs of the Sieur Gaston de Luynes



CONTENTS



CHAPTER

    I.  OF HOW A BOY DRANK TOO MUCH WINE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT
   II.  THE FRUIT OF INDISCRETION
  III.  THE FIGHT IN THE HORSE-MARKET
   IV.  FAIR RESCUERS
    V.  MAZARIN, THE MATCH-MAKER
   VI.  OF HOW ANDREA BECAME LOVE­SICK
  VII.  THE CHÂTEAU DR CANAPLES
 VIII.  THE FORESHADOW OF DISASTER
   IX.  OF HOW A WHIP PROVED A BETTER ARGUMENT THAN A TONGUE
    X.  THE CONSCIENCE OF MALPERTUIS
   XI.  OF A WOMAN'S OBSTINACY
  XII.  THE RESCUE
 XIII.  THE HAND OF YVONNE
  XIV.  OF WHAT BEFELL AT REAUX
   XV.  OF MY RESURRECTION
  XVI.  THE WAY OF WOMAN
 XVII.  FATHER AND SON
XVIII.  OF HOW I LEFT CANAPLES
  XIX.  OF MY RETURN TO PARIS
   XX.  OF HOW THE CHEVALIER DE CANAPLES BECAME A FRONDEUR
  XXI.  OF THE BARGAIN THAT ST. AUBAN DROVE WITH MY LORD CARDINAL
 XXII.  OF MY SECOND JOURNEY TO CANAPLES
XXIII.  OF HOW ST. AUBAN CAME TO BLOIS
 XXIV.  OF THE PASSING OF ST. AUBAN
  XXV.  PLAY-ACTING
 XXVI.  REPARATION





CHAPTER I

OF HOW A BOY DRANK TOO MUCH WINE, AND WHAT CAME OF IT


Andrea de Mancini sprawled, ingloriously drunk, upon the floor.  His legs
were thrust under the table, and his head rested against the chair from
which he had slipped; his long black hair was tossed and dishevelled; his
handsome, boyish face flushed and garbed in the vacant expression of
idiocy.

"I beg a thousand pardons, M. de Luynes," quoth he in the thick, monotonous
voice of a man whose brain but ill controls his tongue,--"I beg a thousand
pardons for the unseemly poverty of our repast.  'T is no fault of mine. 
My Lord Cardinal keeps a most unworthy table for me.  Faugh!  Uncle Giulio
is a Hebrew--if not by birth, by instinct.  He carries his purse-strings in
a knot which it would break his heart to unfasten.  But there! some day my
Lord Cardinal will go to heaven--to the lap of Abraham.  I shall be rich
then, vastly rich, and I shall bid you to a banquet worthy of your most
noble blood.  The Cardinal's health--perdition have him for the
niggardliest rogue unhung!"

I pushed back my chair and rose.  The conversation was taking a turn that
was too unhealthy to be pursued within the walls of the Palais Mazarin,
where there existed, albeit the law books made no reference to it, the
heinous crime of lèse-Eminence--a crime for which more men had been broken
than it pleases me to dwell on.

"Your table, Master Andrea, needs no apology," I answered carelessly. 
"Your wine, for instance, is beyond praise."

"Ah, yes!  The wine!  But, ciel! Monsieur," he ejaculated, for a moment
opening wide his heavy eyelids, "do you believe 't was Mazarin provided it? 
Pooh!  'T was a present made me by M. de la Motte, who seeks my interest
with my Lord Cardinal to obtain for him an appointment in his Eminence's
household, and thus thinks to earn my good will.  He's a pestilent
creature, this la Motte," he added, with a hiccough,--"a pestilent
creature; but, Sangdieu! his wine is good, and I'll speak to my uncle. 
Help me up, De Luynes.  Help me up, I say; I would drink the health of this
provider of wines."

I hurried forward, but he had struggled up unaided, and stood swaying with
one hand on the table and the other on the back of his chair.  In vain did
I remonstrate with him that already he had drunk overmuch.

"'T is a lie!" he shouted.  "May not a gentleman sit upon the floor from
choice?"

To emphasise his protestation he imprudently withdrew his hand from the
chair and struck at the air with his open palm.  That gesture cost him his
balance.  He staggered, toppled backward, and clutched madly at the
tablecloth as he fell, dragging glasses, bottles, dishes, tapers, and a
score of other things besides, with a deafening crash on to the floor.

Then, as I stood aghast and alarmed, wondering who might have overheard the
thunder of his fall, the fool sat up amidst the ruins, and filled the room
with his shrieks of drunken laughter.

"Silence, boy!" I thundered, springing towards him.  "Silence! or we shall
have the whole house about our ears."

And truly were my fears well grounded, for, before I could assist him to
rise, I heard the door behind me open.  Apprehensively I turned, and
sickened to see that that which I had dreaded most was come to pass.  A
tall, imposing figure in scarlet robes stood erect and scowling on the
threshold, and behind him his valet, Bernouin, bearing a lighted taper.

Mancini's laugh faded into a tremulous cackle, then died out, and with
gaping mouth and glassy eyes he sat there staring at his uncle.

Thus we stayed in silence while a man might count mayhap a dozen; then the
Cardinal's voice rang harsh and full of anger.

"'T is thus that you fulfil your trust, M. de Luynes!" he said.

"Your Eminence--" I began, scarce knowing what I should say, when he cut me
short.

"I will deal with you presently and elsewhere."  He stepped up to Andrea,
and surveyed him for a moment in disgust.  "Get up, sir!" he commanded. 
"Get up!"

The lad sought to obey him with an alacrity that merited a kinder fate. 
Had he been in less haste perchance he had been more successful.  As it
was, he had got no farther than his knees when his right leg slid from
under him, and he fell prone among the shattered tableware, mumbling curses
and apologies in a breath.

Mazarin stood gazing at him with an eye that was eloquent in scorn, then
bending down he spoke quickly to him in Italian.  What he said I know not,
being ignorant of their mother tongue; but from the fierceness of his
utterance I'll wager my soul 't was nothing sweet to listen to.  When he
had done with him, he turned to his valet.

"Bernouin," said he, "summon M. de Mancini's servant and assist him to get
my nephew to bed.  M. de Luynes, be good enough to take Bernouin's taper
and light me back to my apartments."

Unsavoury as was the task, I had no choice but to obey, and to stalk on in
front of him, candle in hand, like an acolyte at Notre Dame, and in my
heart the profound conviction that I was about to have a bad quarter of an
hour with his Eminence.  Nor was I wrong; for no sooner had we reached his
cabinet and the door had been closed than he turned upon me the full
measure of his wrath.

"You miserable fool!" he snarled.  "Did you think to trifle with the trust
which in a misguided moment I placed in you?  Think you that, when a week
ago I saved you from starvation to clothe and feed you and give you a
lieutenancy in my guards, I should endure so foul an abuse as this?  Think
you that I entrusted M. de Mancini's training in arms to you so that you
might lead him into the dissolute habits which have dragged you down to
what you are--to what you were before I rescued you--to what you will be
to-morrow when I shall have again abandoned you?"

"Hear me, your Eminence!" I cried indignantly.  "'T is no fault of mine. 
Some fool hath sent M. de Mancini a basket of wine and--"

"And you showed him how to abuse it," he broke in harshly.  "You have
taught the boy to become a sot; in time, were he to remain under your
guidance, I make no doubt but that he would become a gamester and a
duellist as well.  I was mad, perchance, to give him into your care; but I
have the good fortune to be still in time, before the mischief has sunk
farther, to withdraw him from it, and to cast you back into the kennel from
which I picked you."

"Your Eminence does not mean--"

"As God lives I do!" he cried.  "You shall quit the Palais Royal this very
night, M. de Luynes, and if ever I find you unbidden within half a mile of
it, I will do that which out of a misguided sense of compassion I do not do
now--I will have you flung into an oubliette of the Bastille, where better
men than you have rotted before to-day.  Per Dio! do you think that I am to
be fooled by such a thing as you?"

"Does your Eminence dismiss me?" I cried aghast, and scarce crediting that
such was indeed the extreme measure upon which he had determined.

"Have I not been plain enough?" he answered with a snarl.

I realised to the full my unenviable position, and with the realisation of
it there overcame me the recklessness of him who has played his last stake
at the tables and lost.  That recklessness it was that caused me to shrug
my shoulders with a laugh.  I was a soldier of fortune--or should I say a
soldier of misfortune?--as rich in vice as I was poor in virtue; a man who
lived by the steel and parried the blows that came as best he might, or
parried them not at all--but never quailed.

"As your Eminence pleases," I answered coolly, "albeit methinks that for
one who has shed his blood for France as freely as I have done, a little
clemency were not unfitting."

He raised his eyebrows, and his lips curled in a malicious sneer.

"You come of a family, M. de Luynes," he said slowly, "that is famed for
having shed the blood of others for France more freely than its own.  You
are, I believe, the nephew of Albert de Luynes.  Do you forget the Marshal
d'Ancre?"

I felt the blood of anger hot in my face as I made haste to answer him:

"There are many of us, Monseigneur, who have cause to blush for the
families they spring from--more cause, mayhap, than hath Gaston de Luynes."

In my words perchance there was no offensive meaning, but in my tone and in
the look which I bent upon the Cardinal there was that which told him that
I alluded to his own obscure and dubious origin.  He grew livid, and for a
moment methought he would have struck me: had he done so, then, indeed, the
history of Europe would have been other than it is to-day!  He restrained
himself, however, and drawing himself to the full height of his majestic
figure he extended his arm towards the door.

"Go," he said, in a voice that passion rendered hoarse.  "Go, Monsieur.  Go
quickly, while my clemency endures.  Go before I summon the guard and deal
with you as your temerity deserves."

I bowed--not without a taint of mockery, for I cared little what might
follow; then, with head erect and the firm tread of defiance, I stalked out
of his apartment, along the corridor, down the great staircase, across the
courtyard, past the guard,--which, ignorant of my disgrace, saluted me,--
and out into the street.

Then at last my head sank forward on my breast, and deep in thought I
wended my way home, oblivious of all around me, even the chill bite of the
February wind.

In my mind I reviewed my wasted life, with the fleeting pleasures and the
enduring sorrows that it had brought me--or that I had drawn from it.  The
Cardinal said no more than truth when he spoke of having saved me from
starvation.  A week ago that was indeed what he had done.  He had taken
pity on Gaston de Luynes, the nephew of that famous Albert de Luynes who
had been Constable of France in the early days of the late king's reign; he
had made me lieutenant of his guards and maître d'armes to his nephews
Andrea and Paolo de Mancini because he knew that a better blade than mine
could not be found in France, and because he thought it well to have such
swords as mine about him.

A little week ago life had been replete with fresh promises, the gates of
the road to fame (and perchance fortune) had been opened to me anew, and
now--before I had fairly passed that gate I had been thrust rudely back,
and it had been slammed in my face because it pleased a fool to become a
sot whilst in my company.

There is a subtle poetry in the contemplation of ruin.  With ruin itself,
howbeit, there comes a prosaic dispelling of all idle dreams--a hard, a
grim, a vile reality.

Ruin!  'T is an ugly word.  A fitting one to carve upon the tombstone of a
reckless, godless, dissolute life such as mine had been.

Back, Gaston de Luynes! back, to the kennel whence the Cardinal's hand did
for a moment pluck you; back, from the morning of hope to the night of
despair; back, to choose between starvation and the earning of a pauper's
fee as a master of fence!




CHAPTER II

THE FRUIT OF INDISCRETION


Despite the dejection to which I had become a prey, I slept no less soundly
that night than was my wont, and indeed it was not until late next morning
when someone knocked at my door that I awakened.

I sat up in bed, and my first thought as I looked round the handsome room--
which I had rented a week ago upon receiving the lieutenancy in the
Cardinal's guards--was for the position that I had lost and of the need
that there would be ere long to seek a lodging more humble and better
suited to my straitened circumstances.  It was not without regret that such
a thought came to me, for my tastes had never been modest, and the house
was a fine one, situated in the Rue St. Antoine at a hundred paces or so
from the Jesuit convent.

I had no time, however, to indulge the sorry mood that threatened to beset
me, for the knocking at my chamber door continued, until at length I
answered it with a command to enter.

It was my servant Michelot, a grizzled veteran of huge frame and strength,
who had fought beside me at Rocroi, and who had thereafter become so
enamoured of my person--for some trivial service he swore I had rendered
him--that he had attached himself to me and my luckless fortunes.

He came to inform me that M. de Mancini was below and craved immediate
speech with me.  He had scarce done speaking, however, when Andrea himself,
having doubtless grown tired of waiting, appeared in the doorway.  He wore
a sickly look, the result of his last night's debauch; but, more than that,
there was stamped upon his face a look of latent passion which made me
think at first that he was come to upbraid me.

"Ah, still abed, Luynes?" was his greeting as he came forward.

His cloak was wet and his boots splashed, which told me both that he had
come afoot and that it rained.

"There are no duties that bid me rise," I answered sourly.

He frowned at that, then, divesting himself of his cloak, he gave it to
Michelot, who, at a sign from me, withdrew.  No sooner was the door closed
than the boy's whole manner changed.  The simmering passion of which I had
detected signs welled up and seemed to choke him as he poured forth the
story that he had come to tell.

"I have been insulted," he gasped.  "Grossly insulted by a vile creature of
Monsieur d'Orleans's household.  An hour ago in the ante-chamber at the
Palais Royal I was spoken of in my hearing as the besotted nephew of the
Italian adventurer."

I sat up in bed tingling with excitement at the developments which already
I saw arising from his last night's imprudence.

"Calmly, Andrea," I begged of him, "tell me calmly."

"Mortdieu!  How can I be calm?  Ough!  The thought of it chokes me.  I was
a fool last night--a sot.  For that, perchance, men have some right to
censure me.  But, Sangdieu! that a ruffler of the stamp of Eugène de
Canaples should speak of it--should call me the nephew of an Italian
adventurer, should draw down upon me the cynical smile of a crowd of
courtly apes--pah!  I am sick at the memory of it!"

"Did you answer him?"

"Pardieu!  I should be worthy of the title he bestowed upon me had I not
done so.  Oh, I answered him--not in words.  I threw my hat in his face."

"That was a passing eloquent reply!"

"So eloquent that it left him speechless with amazement.  He thought to
bully with impunity, and see me slink into hiding like a whipped dog,
terrified by his blustering tongue and dangerous reputation.  But there!"
he broke off, "a meeting has been arranged for four o'clock at St.
Germain."

"A meeting!" I exclaimed.

"What else?  Do you think the affront left any alternative?"

"But--"

"Yes, yes, I know," he interrupted, tossing his head.  "I am going to be
killed.  Verville has sworn that there shall be one less of the Italian
brood.  That is why I have come to you, Luynes--to ask you to be my second. 
I don't deserve it, perhaps.  In my folly last night I did you an ill turn. 
I unwittingly caused you to be stripped of your commission.  But if I were
on my death-bed now, and begged a favour of you, you would not refuse it. 
And what difference is there 'twixt me and one who is on his death-bed?  Am
I not about to die?"

"Peste! I hope not," I made answer with more lightness than I felt.  "But
I'll stand by you with all my heart, Andrea."

"And you'll avenge me?" he cried savagely, his Southern blood a-boiling. 
"You'll not let him leave the ground alive?"

"Not unless my opponent commits the indiscretion of killing me first.  Who
seconds M. de Canaples?"

"The Marquis de St. Auban and M. de Montmédy."

"And who is the third in our party?"

"I have none.  I thought that perhaps you had a friend."

"I!  A friend?" I laughed bitterly.  "Pshaw, Andrea! beggars have no
friends.  But stay; find Stanislas de Gouville.  There is no better blade
in Paris.  If he will join us in this frolic, and you can hold off Canaples
until either St. Auban or Montmédy is disposed of, we may yet leave the
three of them on the field of battle.  Courage, Andrea!  Dum spiramus,
speramus."

My words seemed to cheer him, and when presently he left me to seek out the
redoubtable Gouville, the poor lad's face was brighter by far than when he
had entered my room.

Down in my heart, however, I was less hopeful than I had led him to
believe, and as I dressed after he had gone, 't was not without some
uneasiness that I turned the matter over in my mind.  I had, during the
short period of our association, grown fond of Andrea de Mancini.  Indeed
the wonted sweetness of the lad's temper, and the gentleness of his
disposition, were such as to breed affection in all who came in contact
with him.  In a way, too, methought he had grown fond of me, and I had
known so few friends in life,--truth to tell I fear me that I had few of
the qualities that engender friendship,--that I was naturally prone to
appreciate a gift that from its rareness became doubly valuable.

Hence was it that I trembled for the boy.  He had shown aptitude with the
foils, and derived great profit from my tuition, yet he was too raw by far
to be pitted against so cunning a swordsman as Canaples.

I had but finished dressing when a coach rumbled down the street and halted
by my door.  Naturally I supposed that someone came to visit Coupri, the
apothecary,--to whom belonged this house in which I had my lodging,--and
did not give the matter a second thought until Michelot rushed in, with
eyes wide open, to announce that his Eminence, Cardinal Mazarin, commanded
my presence in the adjoining room.

Amazed and deeply marvelling what so extraordinary a visit might portend, I
hastened to wait upon his Eminence.

I found him standing by the window, and received from him a greeting that
was passing curt and cavalier.

"Has M. de Mancini been here?" he inquired peremptorily, disregarding the
chair I offered him.

"He has but left me, Monseigneur."

"Then you know, sir, of the harvest which he has already reaped from the
indiscretion into which you led him last night?"

"If Monseigneur alludes to the affront put upon M. de Mancini touching his
last night's indiscretion, by a bully of the Court, I am informed of it."

"Pish, Monsieur!  I do not follow your fine distinctions--possibly this is
due to my imperfect knowledge of the language of France, possibly to your
own imperfect acquaintance with the language of truth."

"Monseigneur!"

"Faugh!" he cried, half scornfully, half peevishly.  "I came not here to
talk of you, but of my nephew.  Why did he visit you?"

"To do me the honour of asking me to second him at St. Germain this
evening."

"And so you think that this duel is to be fought?--that my nephew is to be
murdered?"

"We will endeavour to prevent his being--as your Eminence daintily puts 
it--murdered.  But for the rest, the duel, methinks, cannot be avoided."

"Cannot!" he blazed.  "Do you say cannot, M. de Luynes?  Mark me well, sir:
I will use no dissimulation with you.  My position in France is already a
sufficiently difficult one.  Already we are threatened with a second
Fronde.  It needs but such events as these to bring my family into
prominence and make it the butt for the ridicule that malcontents but wait
an opportunity to slur it with.  This affair of Andrea's will lend itself
to a score or so of lampoons and pasquinades, all of which will cast an
injurious reflection upon my person and position.  That, Monsieur, is,
methinks, sufficient evil to suffer at your hands.  The late Cardinal would
have had you broken on the wheel for less.  I have gone no farther than to
dismiss you from my service--a clemency for which you should be grateful. 
But I shall not suffer that, in addition to the harm already done, Andrea
shall be murdered by Canaples."

"I shall do my best to render him assistance."

"You still misapprehend me.  This duel, sir, must not take place."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"How does your Eminence propose to frustrate it?  Will you arrest
Canaples?"

"Upon what plea, Monsieur?  Think you I am anxious to have the whole of
Paris howling in my ears?"

"Then possibly it is your good purpose to enforce the late king's edict
against duelling, and send your guards to St. Germain to arrest the men
before they engage?"

"Benone!" he sneered.  "And what will Paris say if I now enforce a law that
for ten years has been disregarded?  That I feared for my nephew's skin and
took this means of saving him.  A pretty story to have on Paris's lips,
would it not be?"

"Indeed, Monseigneur, you are right, but I doubt me the duel will needs be
fought."

"Have I not already said that it shall not be fought?"

Again I shrugged my shoulders.  Mazarin grew tiresome with his repetitions.

"How can it be avoided, your Eminence?"

"Ah, Monsieur, that is your affair."

"My affair?"

"Assuredly.  'T was through your evil agency he was dragged into this
business, and through your agency he must be extricated from it."

"Your Eminence jests!"

"Undoubtedly,--'t is a jesting matter," he answered with terrible irony. 
"Oh, I jest!  Per Dio! yes.  But I'll carry my jest so far as to have you
hanged if this duel be fought--aye, whether my nephew suffers hurt or not. 
Now, sir, you know what fate awaits you; fight it--turn it aside--I have
shown you the way.  The door, M. de Luynes."




CHAPTER III

THE FIGHT IN THE HORSE-MARKET


I let him go without a word.  There was that in his voice, in his eye, and
in the gesture wherewith he bade me hold the door for him, that cleared my
mind of any doubts touching the irrevocable character of his determination. 
To plead was never an accomplishment of mine; to argue, I saw, would be to
waste the Cardinal's time to no purpose.

And so I let him go,--and my curse with him,--and from my window I watched
his coach drive away in the drizzling rain, scattering the crowd of awe-
stricken loiterers who had collected at the rumour of his presence.

With a fervent prayer that his patron saint, the devil, might see fit to
overset his coach and break his neck before he reached the Palace, I turned
from the window, and called Michelot.

He was quick to answer my summons, bringing me the frugal measure of bread
and wine wherewith it was my custom to break my fast.  Then, whilst I
munched my crust, I strode to and fro in the little chamber and exercised
my wits to their utmost for a solution to the puzzle his Eminence had set
me.

One solution there was, and an easy one--flight.  But I had promised Andrea
de Mancini that I would stand beside him at St. Germain; there was a
slender chance of saving him if I went, whilst, if I stayed away, there
would be nothing left for his Eminence to do but to offer up prayers for
the rest of his nephew's soul.

Another idea I had, but it was desperate--and yet, so persistently did my
thoughts revert to it that in the end I determined to accept it.

I drank a cup of Armagnac, cheered myself with an oath or two, and again I
called Michelot.  When he came, I asked him if he were acquainted with M.
de Canaples, to which he replied that he was, having seen the gentleman in
my company.

"Then," I said, "you will repair to M. de Canaples's lodging in the Rue des
Gesvres, and ascertain discreetly whether he be at home.  If he is, you
will watch the house until he comes forth, then follow him, and bring me
word thereafter where he is to be found.  Should he be already abroad
before you reach the Rue des Gesvres, endeavour to ascertain whither he has
gone, and return forthwith.  But be discreet, Michelot.  You understand?"

He assured me that he did, and left me to nurse my unpleasant thoughts for
half an hour, returning at the end of that time with the information that
M. de Canaples was seated at dinner in the "Auberge du Soleil."

Naught could have been more attuned to my purpose, and straightway I drew
on my boots, girt on my sword, and taking my hat and cloak, I sallied out
into the rain, and wended my way at a sharp pace towards the Rue St.
Honoré.

One o'clock was striking as I crossed the threshold of the "Soleil" and
flung my dripping cloak to the first servant I chanced upon.

I glanced round the well-filled room, and at one of the tables I espied my
quarry in company with St. Auban and Montmédy--the very gentlemen who were
to fight beside him that evening--and one Vilmorin, as arrant a coxcomb and
poltroon as could be found in France.  With my beaver cocked at the back of
my head, and a general bearing that for aggressiveness would be hard to
surpass, I strode up to their table, and stood for a moment surveying them
with an insolent stare that made them pause in their conversation.  They
raised their noble heads and bestowed upon me a look of haughty and
disdainful wonder,--such a look as one might bestow upon a misbehaving
lackey,--all save Vilmorin, who, with a coward's keen nose for danger,
turned slightly pale and fidgeted in his chair.  I was well known to all of
them, but my attitude forbade all greeting.

"Has M. de Luynes lost anything?" St. Auban inquired icily.

"His wits, mayhap," quoth Canaples with a contemptuous shrug.

He was a tall, powerfully built man, this Canaples, with a swart, cruel
face that was nevertheless not ill-favoured, and a profusion of black hair.

"There is a temerity in M. de Canaples's rejoinder that I had not looked
for," I said banteringly.

Canaples's brow was puckered in a frown.

"Ha!  And why not, Monsieur?"

"Why not?  Because it is not to be expected that one who fastens quarrels
upon schoolboys would evince the courage to beard Gaston de Luynes."

"Monsieur!" the four of them cried in chorus, so loudly that the hum of
voices in the tavern became hushed, and all eyes were turned in our
direction.

"M. de Canaples," I said calmly, "permit me to say that I can find no more
fitting expression for the contempt I hold you in than this."

As I spoke I seized a corner of the tablecloth, and with a sudden tug I
swept it, with all it held, on to the floor.

Dame! what a scene there was!  In an instant the four of them were on their
feet,--as were half the occupants of the room, besides,--whilst poor
Vilmorin, who stood trembling like a maid who for the first time hears
words of love, raised his quavering voice to cry soothingly, "Messieurs,
Messieurs!"

Canaples was livid with passion, but otherwise the calmest in that room,
saving perhaps myself.  With a gesture he restrained Montmédy and St.
Auban.

"I shall be happy to give Master de Luynes all the proof of my courage that
he may desire, and more, I warrant, than he will relish."

"Bravely answered!" I cried, with an approving nod and a beaming smile. 
"Be good enough to lead the way to a convenient spot."

"I have other business at the moment," he answered calmly.  "Let us say to-
morrow at--"

"Faugh!" I broke in scornfully.  "I knew it!  Confess, Monsieur, that you
dare not light me now lest you should be unable to keep your appointments
for this evening."

"Mille diables!" exclaimed St. Auban, "this insolence passes all bounds."

"Each man in his turn if you please, gentlemen," I replied.  "My present
affair is with M. de Canaples."

There was a hot answer burning on St. Auban's lips, but Canaples was
beforehand with him.

"Par la mort Dieu!" he cried; "you go too far, sir, with your 'dare' and
'dare not.'  Is a broken gamester, a penniless adventurer, to tell Eugène
de Canaples what he dares?  Come, sir; since you are eager for the taste of
steel, follow me, and say your prayers as you go."

With that we left the inn, amidst a prodigious hubbub, and made our way to
the horse-market behind the Hôtel Vendôme.  It was not to be expected,
albeit the place we had chosen was usually deserted at such an hour, that
after the fracas at the "Soleil" our meeting would go unattended.  When we
faced each other--Canaples and I--there were at least some twenty persons
present, who came, despite the rain, to watch what they thought was like to
prove a pretty fight.  Men of position were they for the most part,
gentlemen of the Court with here and there a soldier, and from the manner
in which they eyed me methought they favoured me but little.

Our preparations were brief.  The absence of seconds disposed of all
formalities, the rain made us impatient to be done, and in virtue of it
Canaples pompously announced that he would not risk a cold by stripping. 
With interest did I grimly answer that he need fear no cold when I had done
with him.  Then casting aside my cloak, I drew, and, professing myself also
disposed to retain my doublet, we forthwith engaged.

He was no mean swordsman, this Canaples.  Indeed, his reputation was
already widespread, and in the first shock of our meeting blades I felt
that rumour had been just for once.  But I was strangely dispossessed of
any doubts touching the outcome; this being due perchance to a vain
confidence in my own skill, perchance to the spirit of contemptuous
raillery wherewith I had from the outset treated the affair, and which had
so taken root in my heart that even when we engaged I still, almost
unwittingly, persisted in it.

In my face and attitude there was the reflection of this bantering,
flippant mood; it was to be read in the mocking disdain of my glance, in
the scornful curl of my lip, and even in the turn of my wrist as I put
aside my opponent's passes.  All this, Canaples must have noted, and it was
not without effect upon his nerves.  Moreover, there is in steel a subtle
magnetism which is the index of one's antagonist; and from the moment that
our blades slithered one against the other I make no doubt but that
Canaples grew aware of the confident, almost exultant mood in which I met
him, and which told him that I was his master.  Add to this the fact that
whilst Canaples's nerves were unstrung by passion mine were held in check
by a mind as calm and cool as though our swords were baited, and consider
with what advantages I took my ground.

He led the attack fiercely and furiously, as if I were a boy whose guard
was to be borne down by sheer weight of blows.  I contented myself with
tapping his blade aside, and when at length, after essaying every trick in
his catalogue, he fell back baffled, I laughed a low laugh of derision that
drove him pale with fury.

Again he came at me, almost before I was prepared for him, and his point,
parried with a downward stroke and narrowly averted, scratched my thigh,
but did more damage to my breeches than my skin.  in exchange I touched him
playfully on the shoulder, and the sting of it drove him back a second
time.  He was breathing hard by then, and would fain have paused awhile for
breath, but I saw no reason to be merciful.

"Now, sir," I cried, saluting him as though our combat were but on the
point of starting--"to me!  Guard yourself!"

Again our swords clashed, and my blows now fell as swift on his blade as
his had done awhile ago on mine.  So hard did I press him that he was
forced to give way before me.  Back I drove him pace by pace, his wrist
growing weaker at each parry, each parry growing wider, and the
perspiration streaming down his ashen face.  Panting he went, in that
backward flight before my onslaught, defending himself as best he could,
never thinking of a riposte--beaten already.  Back, and yet back he went,
until he reached the railings and could back no farther, and so broken was
his spirit then that a groan escaped him.  I answered with a laugh--my mood
was lusty and cruel--and thrust at him.  Then, eluding his guard, I thrust
again, beneath it, and took him fairly in the middle of his doublet.

He staggered, dropped his rapier, and caught at the railings, where for a
moment he hung swaying and gasping.  Then his head fell forward, his grip
relaxed, and swooning he sank down into a heap.

A dozen sprang to his aid, foremost amongst them being St. Auban and
Montmédy, whilst I drew back, suddenly realising my own spent condition, to
which the heat of the combat had hitherto rendered me insensible.  I
mastered myself as best I might, and, dissembling my hard breathing, I
wiped my blade with a kerchief, an act which looked so calm and callous
that it drew from the crowd--for a crowd it had become by then--an angry
growl.  'T is thus with the vulgar; they are ever ready to sympathise with
the vanquished without ever pausing to ask themselves if his chastisement
may not be merited.

In answer to the growl I tossed my head, and sheathing my sword I flung the
bloodstained kerchief into their very midst.  The audacity of the gesture
left them breathless, and they growled no more, but stared.

Then that outrageous fop, Vilmorin, who had been bending over Canaples,
started up and coming towards me with a face that was whiter than that of
the prostrate man, he proved himself so utterly bereft of wit by terror
that for once he had the temerity to usurp the words and actions of a brave
man.

"You have murdered him!" he cried in a strident voice, and thrusting his
clenched fist within an inch of my face.  "Do you hear me, you knave?  You
have murdered him!"

Now, as may be well conceived, I was in no mood to endure such words from
any man, so was but natural that for answer I caught the dainty Vicomte a
buffet that knocked him into the arms of the nearest bystander, and brought
him to his senses.

"Fool," I snarled at him, "must I make another example before you believe
that Gaston de Luynes wears a sword?"

"In the name of Heaven--" he began, putting forth his hands in a beseeching
gesture; but what more he said was drowned by the roar of anger that burst
from the onlookers, and it was like to have gone ill with me had not St.
Auban come to my aid at that most critical juncture.

"Messieurs!" he cried, thrusting himself before me, and raising his hand to
crave silence, "hear me.  I, a friend of M. de Canaples, tell you that you
wrong M. de Luynes.  'T was a fair fight--how the quarrel arose is no
concern of yours."

Despite his words they still snarled and growled like the misbegotten curs
they were.  But St. Auban was famous for the regal supper parties he gave,
to which all were eager to be bidden, and amidst that crowd, as I have
said, there were a score or so of gentlemen of the Court, who--with scant
regard for the right or wrong of the case and every regard to conciliate
this giver of suppers--came to range themselves beside and around us, and
thus protected me from the murderous designs of that rabble.

Seeing how the gentlemen took my part, and deeming--in their blessed
ignorance--that what gentlemen did must be perforce well done, they grew
calm in the twinkling of an eye.  Thereupon St. Auban, turning to me,
counselled me in a whisper to be gone, whilst the tide of opinion flowed in
my favour.  Intent to act upon this good advice, I took a step towards the
little knot that had collected round Canaples, and with natural curiosity
inquired into the nature of his hurt.

'T was Montmédy who answered me, scowling as he did so:

"He may die of it, Monsieur.  If he does not, his recovery will be at least
slow and difficult."

I had been wise had I held my peace and gone; but, like a fool, I must
needs give utterance to what was in my mind.

"Ah!  At least there will be no duel at St. Germain this evening."

Scarce had the words fallen from my lips when I saw in the faces of
Montmédy and St. Auban and half a dozen others the evidence of their
rashness.

"So!" cried St. Auban in a voice that shook with rage.  "That was your
object, eh?  That you had fallen low, Master de Luynes, I knew, but I
dreamt not that in your fall you had come so low as this."

"You dare?"

"Pardieu!  I dare more, Monsieur; I dare tell you--you, Gaston de Luynes,
spy and bravo of the Cardinal--that your object shall be defeated.  That,
as God lives, this duel shall still be fought--by me instead of Canaples."

"And I tell you, sir, that as God lives it shall not," I answered with a
vehemence not a whit less than his own.  "To you and to what other fools
may think to follow in your footsteps, I say this: that not to-night nor
to-morrow nor the next day shall that duel be fought.  Cowards and
poltroons you are, who seek to murder a beardless boy who has injured none
of you!  But, by my soul! every man who sends a challenge to that boy will
I at once seek out and deal with as I have dealt with Eugène de Canaples. 
Let those who are eager to try another world make the attempt.  Adieu,
Messieurs!"

And with a flourish of my sodden beaver, I turned and left them before they
had recovered from the vehemence of my words.




CHAPTER IV

FAIR RESCUERS


Like the calm of the heavens when pregnant with thunder was the calm of
that crowd.  And as brief it was; for scarce had I taken a dozen steps when
my ears were assailed by a rumble of angry voices and a rush of feet.  One
glance over my shoulder, one second's hesitation whether I should stay and
beard them, then the thought of Andrea de Mancini and of what would befall
him did this canaille vent its wrath upon me decided my course and sent me
hotfoot down the Rue Monarque.  Howling and bellowing that rabble followed
in my wake, stumbling over one another in their indecent haste to reach me.

But I was fleet of foot, and behind me there was that that would lend wings
to the most deliberate, so that when I turned into the open space before
the Hôtel Vendôme I had set a good fifty yards betwixt myself and the
foremost of my hunters.

A coach was passing at that moment.  I shouted, and the knave who drove
glanced at me, then up the Rue Monarque at my pursuers, whereupon, shaking
his head, he would have left me to my fate.  But I was of another mind.  I
dashed towards the vehicle, and as it passed me I caught at the window,
which luckily was open, and drawing up my legs I hung there despite the
shower of mud which the revolving wheels deposited upon me.

From the bowels of the coach I was greeted by a woman's scream; a pale
face, and a profusion of fair hair flashed before my eyes.

"Fear not, Madame," I shouted.  "I am no assassin, but rather one who
stands in imminent peril of assassination, and who craves your protection."

More I would have said, but at that juncture the lash of the coachman's
whip curled itself about my shoulders, and stung me vilely.

"Get down, you rascal," he bellowed; "get down or I'll draw rein!"

To obey him would have been madness.  The crowd surged behind with hoots
and yells, and had I let go I must perforce have fallen into their hands. 
So, instead of getting down as he inconsiderately counselled, I drew myself
farther up by a mighty effort, and thrust half my body into the coach,
whereupon the fair lady screamed again, and the whip caressed my legs.  But
within the coach sat another woman, dark of hair and exquisite of face, who
eyed my advent with a disdainful glance.  Her proud countenance bore the
stamp of courage, and to her it was that I directed my appeal.

"Madame, permit me, I pray, to seek shelter in your carriage, and suffer me
to journey a little way with you.  Quick, Madame!  Your coachman is drawing
rein, and I shall of a certainty be murdered under your very nose unless
you bid him change his mind.  To be murdered in itself is a trifling
matter, I avow, but it is not nice to behold, and I would not, for all the
world, offend your eyes with the spectacle of it."

I had judged her rightly, and my tone of flippant recklessness won me her
sympathy and aid.  Quickly thrusting her head through the other window:

"Drive on, Louis," she commanded.  "Faster!"  Then turning to me, "You may
bring your legs into the coach if you choose, sir," she said.

"Your words, Madame, are the sweetest music I have heard for months," I
answered drily, as I obeyed her.  Then leaning out of the carriage again I
waved my hat gallantly to the mob which--now realising the futility of
further pursuit--had suddenly come to a halt.

"Au plaisir de vous revoir, Messieurs," I shouted.  "Come to me one by one,
and I'll keep the devil busy finding lodgings for you."

They answered me with a yell, and I sat down content, and laughed.

"You are not a coward, Monsieur," said the dark lady.

"I have been accounted many unsavoury things, Madame, but my bitterest
enemies never dubbed me that."

"Why, then, did you run away?"

"Why?  Ma foi! because in the excessive humility of my soul I recognised
myself unfit to die."

She bit her lip and her tiny foot beat impatiently upon the floor.

"You are trifling with me, Monsieur.  Where do you wish to alight?"

"Pray let that give you no concern; I can assure you that I am in no
haste."

"You become impertinent, sir," she cried angrily.  "Answer me, where are
you going?"

"Where am I going?  Oh, ah--to the Palais Royal."

Her eyes opened very wide at that, and wandered over me with a look that
was passing eloquent.  Indeed, I was a sorry spectacle for any woman's
eyes--particularly a pretty one's.  Splashed from head to foot with mud, my
doublet saturated and my beaver dripping, with the feather hanging limp and
broken, whilst there was a rent in my breeches that had been made by
Canaples's sword, I take it that I had not the air of a courtier, and that
when I said that I went to the Palais Royal she might have justly held me
to be the adventurous lover of some kitchen wench.  But unto the Palais
Royal go others besides courtiers and lovers--spies of the Cardinal, for
instance, and in her sudden coldness and the next question that fell from
her beauteous lips I read that she had guessed me one of these.

"Why did the mob pursue you, Monsieur?"

There was in her voice and gesture when she asked a question the
imperiousness of one accustomed to command replies.  This pretty
queenliness it was that drove me to answer--as I had done before--in a
bantering strain.

"Why did the mob pursue me?  Hum!  Why does the mob pursue great men? 
Because it loves their company."

Her matchless eyes flashed an angry glance, and the faint smile on my lips
must have tried her temper sorely.

"What did you do to deserve this affection?"

"A mere nothing--I killed a man," I answered coolly.  "Or, at least, I left
him started on the road to--Paradise."

The little flaxen-haired doll uttered a cry of horror, and covered her face
with her small white hands.  My inquisitor, however, sat rigid and
unaffected.  My answer had confirmed her suspicions.

"Why did you kill him?"

"Ma foi!" I replied, encouraging her thoughts, "because he sought to kill
me."

"Ah!  And why did he seek to kill you?"

"Because I disturbed him at dinner."

"Have a care how you trifle, sir!" she retorted, her eyes kindling again.

"Upon my honour, 't was no more than that.  I pulled the cloth from the
table whilst he ate.  He was a quick-tempered gentleman, and my playfulness
offended him.  That is all."

Doubt appeared in her eyes, and it may have entered her mind that perchance
her judgment had been over-hasty.

"Do you mean, sir, that you provoked a duel?"

"Alas, Madame!  It had become necessary.  You see, M. de Canaples--"

"Who?" Her voice rang sharp as the crack of a pistol.

"Eh?  M. de Canaples."

"Was it he whom you killed?"

From her tone, and the eager, strained expression of her face, it was not
difficult to read that some mighty interest of hers was involved in my
reply.  It needed not the low moan that burst from her companion to tell me
so.

"As I have said, Madame, it is possible that he is not dead--nay, even that
he will not die.  For the rest, since you ask the question, my opponent
was, indeed, M. de Canaples--Eugène de Canaples."

Her face went deadly white, and she sank back in her seat as if every nerve
in her body had of a sudden been bereft of power, whilst she of the fair
hair burst into tears.

A pretty position was this for me!--luckily it endured not.  The girl
roused herself from her momentary weakness, and, seizing the cord, she
tugged it violently.  The coach drew up.

"Alight, sir," she hissed--"go!  I wish to Heaven that I had left you to
the vengeance of the people."

Not so did I; nevertheless, as I alighted: "I am sorry, Madame, that you
did not," I answered.  "Adieu!"

The coach moved away, and I was left standing at the corner of the Rue St. 
Honoré and the Rue des Bons Enfants, in the sorriest frame of mind
conceivable.  The lady in the coach had saved my life, and for that I was
more grateful perchance than my life was worth.  Out of gratitude sprang a
regret for the pain that I had undoubtedly caused her, and the sorrow which
it might have been my fate to cast over her life.

Still, regret, albeit an admirable sentiment, was one whose existence was
usually brief in my bosom.  Dame!  Had I been a man of regrets I might have
spent the remainder of my days weeping over my past life.  But the gods,
who had given me a character calculated to lead a man into misfortune, had
given me a stout heart wherewith to fight that misfortune, and an armour of
recklessness against which remorse, regrets, aye, and conscience itself,
rained blows in vain.

And so it befell that presently I laughed myself out of the puerile humour
that was besetting me, and, finding myself chilled by inaction in my wet
clothes, I set off for the Palais Royal at a pace that was first cousin to
a run.

Ten minutes later I stood in the presence of the most feared and hated man
in France.

"Cospetto!" cried Mazarin as I entered his cabinet.  "Have you swum the
Seine in your clothes?"

"No, your Eminence, but I have been serving you in the rain for the past
hour."

He smiled that peculiar smile of his that rendered hateful his otherwise
not ill-favoured countenance.  It was a smile of the lips in which the eyes
had no part.

"Yes," he said slowly, "I have heard of your achievements."

"You have heard?" I ejaculated, amazed by the powers which this man
wielded.

"Yes, I have heard.  You are a brave man, M. de Luynes."

"Pshaw, your Eminence!" I deprecated; "the poor are always brave.  They
have naught to lose but their life, and that is not so sweet to them that
they lay much store by it.  Howbeit, Monseigneur, your wishes have been
carried out.  There will be no duel at St. Germain this evening."

"Will there not?  Hum!  I am not so confident.  You are a brave man, M. de
Luynes, but you lack that great auxiliary of valour--discretion.  What need
to fling into the teeth of those fine gentlemen the reason you had for
spitting Canaples, eh?  You have provoked a dozen enemies for Andrea where
only one existed."

"I will answer for all of them," I retorted boastfully.

"Fine words, M. de Luynes; but to support them how many men will you have
to kill?  Pah!  What if some fine morning there comes one who, despite your
vaunted swordsmanship, proves your master?  What will become of that fool,
my nephew, eh?"

And his uncanny smile again beamed on me.  "Andrea is now packing his
valise.  In an hour he will have left Paris secretly.  He goes--but what
does it signify where he goes?  He is compelled by your indiscretion to
withdraw from Court.  Had you kept a close tongue in your foolish head--but
there! you did not, and so by a thoughtless word you undid all that you had
done so well.  You may go, M. de Luynes.  I have no further need of you--
and thank Heaven that you leave the Palais Royal free to go whither your
fancy takes you, and not to journey to the Bastille or to Vincennes.  I am
merciful, M. de Luynes--as merciful as you are brave; more merciful than
you are prudent.  One word of warning, M. de Luynes: do not let me learn
that you are in my nephew's company, if you would not make me regret my
clemency and repair the error of it by having you hanged.  And now, adieu!"

I stood aghast.  Was I indeed dismissed?  Albeit naught had been said, I
had not doubted, since my interview with him that morning, that did I
succeed in saving Andrea my rank in his guards--and thereby a means of
livelihood--would be restored to me.  And now matters were no better than
they had been before.  He dismissed me with the assurance that he was
merciful.  As God lives, it would have been as merciful to have hanged me!

He met my astonished look with an eye that seemed to ask me why I lingered. 
Then reading mayhap what was passing in my thoughts, he raised a little
silver whistle to his lips and blew softly upon it.

"Bernouin," said he to his valet, who entered in answer to the summons,
"reconduct M. de Luynes."

I remember drawing down upon my bedraggled person the curious gaze of the
numerous clients who thronged the Cardinal's ante-chamber, as I followed
Bernouin to the door which opened on to the corridor, and which he held for
me.  And thus, for the second time within twenty-four hours, did I leave
the Palais Royal to wend my way home to the Rue St. Antoine with grim
despondency in my heart.

I found Michelot on the point of setting out in search of me, with a note
which had been brought to my lodging half an hour ago, and which its bearer
had said was urgent.  I took the letter, and bidding Michelot prepare me
fresh raiment that I might exchange for my wet clothes, I broke the seal
and read:


"A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the service you have rendered me and
of which his Eminence, my uncle, has informed me.  I fear that you have
made many enemies for yourself through an action which will likely go
unrewarded, and that Paris is therefore as little suited at present to your
health as it is to mine.  I am setting out for Blois on a mission of
exceeding delicacy wherein your advice and guidance would be of infinite
value to me.  I shall remain at Choisy until to-morrow morning, and should
there be no ties to hold you in Paris, and you be minded to bear me
company, join me there at the Hôtel du Connétable where I shall lie 
to-night.     Your grateful and devoted

ANDRE."


So!  There was one at least who desired my company!  I had not thought it. 
"If there be no ties to hold you in Paris," he wrote.  Dame!  A change of
air would suit me vastly.  I was resolved--a fig for the Cardinal's threat
to hang me if I were found in his nephew's company!

"My suit of buff, Michelot," I shouted, springing to my feet, "and my
leather jerkin."

He gazed at me in surprise.

"Is Monsieur going a journey?"

I answered him that I was, and as I spoke I began to divest myself of the
clothes I wore.  "Pack my suit of pearl grey in the valise, with what
changes of linen I possess; then call Master Coupri that I may settle with
him.  It may be some time before we return."

In less than half an hour I was ready for the journey, spurred and booted,
with my rapier at my side, and in the pocket of my haut-de­chausses a purse
containing some fifty pistoles--best part of which I had won from Vilmorin
at lansquenet some nights before, and which moderate sum represented all
the moneys that I possessed.

Our horses were ready, my pistols holstered, and my valise strapped to
Michelot's saddle.  Despite the desperate outlook of my fortunes, of which
I had made him fully cognisant, he insisted upon clinging to me, reminding
me that at Rocroi I had saved his life and that he would leave me only when
I bade him go.

As four o'clock was striking at Nôtre Dame we crossed the Pont Neuf, and
going by the Quai des Augustins and the Rue de la Harpe, we quitted Paris
by the St. Michel Gate and took the road to Choisy.  The rain had ceased,
but the air was keen and cold, and the wind cut like a sword-edge.




CHAPTER V

MAZARIN, THE MATCH-MAKER


Twixt Paris and Choisy there lies but a distance of some two leagues,
which, given a fair horse, one may cover with ease in little more than half
an hour.  So that as the twilight was deepening into night we drew rein
before the hostelry of the Connétable, in the only square the little
township boasts, and from the landlord I had that obsequious reception
which is ever accorded to him who travels with a body-servant.

I found Andrea installed in a fair-sized and comfortable apartment, to the
original decoration of which he added not a little by bestowing his boots
in the centre of the floor, his hat, sword, and baldrick on the table, his
cloak on one chair, and his doublet on another.  He himself sat toasting
his feet before the blazing logs, which cast a warm, reddish glow upon his
sable hair and dainty shirt of cambric.

He sprang up as I entered, and came towards me with a look of pleasure on
his handsome, high-bred face, that did me good to see.

"So, you have come, De Luynes," he cried, putting forth his hand.  "I did
not dare to hope that you would."

"No," I answered.  "Truly it was not to be expected that I could be easily
lured from Paris just as my fortunes are nearing a high tide, and his
Eminence proposing to make me a Marshal of France and create me Duke.  As
you say, you had scant grounds for hoping that my love for you would
suffice to make me renounce all these fine things for the mere sake of
accompanying you on your jaunt to Blois."

He laughed, then fell to thanking me for having rid him of Canaples.  I cut
him short at last, and in answer to his questions told him what had passed
'twixt his Eminence and me that afternoon.  Then as the waiter entered to
spread our supper, the conversation assumed a less delicate character,
until we were again alone with the table and its steaming viands between
us.

"You have not told me yet, Andrea, what takes you to Blois," quoth I then.

"You shall learn.  Little do you dream how closely interwoven are our
morning adventures with this journey of mine.  To begin with, I go to Blois
to pay my dévoirs to the lady whom his Eminence has selected for my future
wife."

"You were then right in describing this as a mission of great delicacy."

"More than you think--I have never seen the lady."

"Never seen her?  And you go a-wooing a woman you have never seen?"

"It is so.  I have never seen her; but his Eminence has, and 't is he who
arranges the affair.  Ah, the Cardinal is the greatest match­maker in
France!  My cousin Anna Martinozzi is destined for the Prince de Conti, my
sisters Olympia and Marianne he also hopes to marry to princes of the
blood, whilst I dare wager that he has thoughts of seating either Maria or
Hortensia upon the throne of France as the wife of Louis XIV., as soon as
his Majesty shall have reached a marriageable age.  You may laugh, De
Luynes, nevertheless all this may come to pass, for my uncle has great
ambitions for his family, and it is even possible that should that poor,
wandering youth, Charles II. of England, ever return to the throne of his
fathers he may also become my brother-in-law.  I am likely to become well
connected, De Luynes, so make a friend of me whilst I am humble.  So much
for Mazarin's nieces.  His nephews are too young for alliances just yet,
saving myself; and for me his Eminence has chosen one of the greatest
heiresses in France--Yvonne St. Albaret de Canaples."

"Whom?" I shouted.

He smiled.

"Curious, is it not?  She is the sister of the man whom I quarrelled with
this morning, and whom you fought with this afternoon.  Now you will
understand my uncle's reasons for so strenuously desiring to prevent the
duel at St. Germain.  It appears that the old Chevalier de Canaples is as
eager as the Cardinal to see his daughter wed to me, for his Eminence has
promised to create me Duke for a wedding gift.  'T will cost him little,
and 't will please these Canaples mightily.  Naturally, had Eugène de
Canaples and I crossed swords, matters would have been rendered difficult."

"When did you learn all this?" I inquired.

"To-day, after the duel, and when it was known what St. Auban and Montmédy
had threatened me with.  My uncle thought it well that I should withdraw
from Paris.  He sent for me and told me what I have told you, adding that I
had best seize the opportunity, whilst my presence at Court was
undesirable, to repair to Blois and get my wooing done.  I in part agreed
with him.  The lady is very rich, and I am told that she is beautiful.  I
shall see her, and if she pleases me, I'll woo her.  If not, I'll return to
Paris."

"But her brother will oppose you."

"Her brother?  Pooh!  If he doesn't die of the sword-thrust you gave him,
which I am told is in the region of the lung and passing dangerous, he will
at least be abed for a couple of months to come."

"But I, mon cher André?  What rôle do you reserve for me, that you have
desired me to go with you?"

"The rôle of Mentor if you will.  Methought you would prove a merry comrade
to help one o'er a tedious journey, and knowing that there was little to
hold you to Paris, and probably sound reasons why you should desire to quit
it, meseemed that perhaps you would consent to bear me company.  Who knows,
my knight errant, what adventures may await you and what fortunes?  If the
heiress displeases me, it may be that she will please you--or mayhap there
is another heiress at Blois who will fall enamoured of those fierce
moustachios."

I laughed with him at the improbability of such things befalling.  I
carried in my bosom too large a heart, and one that was the property of
every wench I met--for just so long as I chanced to be in her company.

It was no more than in harmony with this habit of mine, that when, next
morning in the common-room of the Connétable, I espied Jeanneton, the
landlord's daughter, and remarked that she was winsome and shapely, with a
complexion that would not have dishonoured a rose-petal, I permitted myself
to pinch her dainty cheek.  She slapped mine in return, and in this
pleasant manner we became acquainted.

"Sweet Jeanneton," quoth I with a laugh, "that was mightily ill-done!  I
did but pinch your cheek as one may pinch a sweet-smelling bud, so that the
perfume of it may cling to one's fingers."

"And I, sir," was the pert rejoinder, "did but slap yours as one may slap a
misbehaving urchin's; so that he may learn better manners."

Nevertheless she was pleased with my courtly speech, and perchance also
with my moustachios, for a smile took the place of the frown wherewith she
had at first confronted me.  Now, if I had uttered glib pleasantries in
answer to her frowns, how many more did not her smiles wring from me!  I
discoursed to her in the very courtliest fashion of cows and pullets and
such other matters as interesting to her as they were mysterious to me.  I
questioned her in a breath touching her father's pigs and the swain she
loved best in that little township, to all of which she answered me with a
charming wit, which would greatly divert you did I but recall her words
sufficiently to set them down.  In five minutes we had become the best
friends in the world, which was attested by the protecting arm that I
slipped around her waist, as I asked her whether she loved that village
swain of hers better than she loved me, and refused to believe her when she
answered that she did.

Outside two men were talking, one calling for a farrier, and when informed
that the only one in the village was absent and not likely to return till
noon, demanding relays of horses.  The other--probably the hostler--
answered him that the Connétable was not a post-house and that no horses
were to be had there.  Then a woman's voice, sweet yet commanding, rose
above theirs.

"Very well, Guilbert," it said.  "We will await this farrier's return."

"Let me go, Monsieur!" cried Jeanneton.  "Some one comes."

Now for myself I cared little who might come, but methought that it was
likely to do poor Jeanneton's fair name no benefit, if the arm of Gaston de
Luynes were seen about her waist.  And so I obeyed her, but not quickly
enough; for already a shadow lay athwart the threshold, and in the doorway
stood a woman, whose eye took in the situation before we had altered it
sufficiently to avert suspicion.  To my amazement I beheld the lady of the
coach--she who had saved me from the mob in Place Vendôme, and touching
whose identity I could have hazarded a shrewd guess.

In her eyes also I saw the light of recognition which swiftly changed to
one of scorn.  Then they passed from me to the vanishing Jeanneton, and
methought that she was about to call her back.  She paused, however, and,
turning to the lackey who followed at her heels.

"Guilbert," she said, "be good enough to call the landlord, and bid him
provide me with an apartment for the time that we may be forced to spend
here."

But at this juncture the host himself came hurrying forward with many bows
and endless rubbing of hands, which argued untold deference.  He regretted
that the hostelry of the Connétable, being but a poor inn, seldom honoured
as it was at that moment, possessed but one suite of private apartments,
and that was now occupied by a most noble gentleman.  The lady tapped her
foot, and as at that moment her companion (who was none other than the
fair-haired doll I had seen with her on the previous day) entered the room,
she turned to speak with her, whilst I moved away towards the window.

"Will this gentleman," she inquired, "lend me one of his rooms, think you?"

"Hélas, Mademoiselle, he has but two, a bedroom and an ante-chamber, and he
is still abed."

"Oh!" she cried in pretty anger, "this is insufferable!  'T is your fault,
Guilbert, you fool.  Am I, then, to spend the day here in the common-room?"

"No, no, Mademoiselle," exclaimed the host in his most soothing accents. 
"Only for an hour, or less, perhaps, until this very noble lord is risen,
when assuredly--for he is young and very gallant--he will resign one or
both of his rooms to you."

More was said between them, but my attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere. 
Michelot burst into the room, disaster written on his face.

"Monsieur," he cried, in great alarm, "the Marquis de St. Auban is riding
down the street with the Vicomte de Vilmorin and another gentleman."

I rapped out an oath at the news; they had got scent of Andrea's
whereabouts, and were after him like sleuth-hounds on a trail.

"Remain here, Michelot," I answered in a low voice.  "Tell them that M. de
Mancini is not here, that the only occupant of the inn is your master, a
gentleman from Normandy, or Picardy, or where you will.  See that they do
not guess our presence--the landlord fortunately is ignorant of M. de
Mancini's name."

There was a clatter of horses' hoofs without, and I was barely in time to
escape by the door leading to the staircase, when St. Auban's heavy voice
rang out, calling the landlord.

"I am in search of a gentleman named Andrea de Mancini," he said.  "I am
told that he has journeyed hither, and that he is here at present.  Am I
rightly informed?"

I determined to remain where I was, and hear that conversation to the end.

"There is a gentleman here," answered the host, "but I am ignorant of his
name.  I will inquire."

"You may spare yourself the trouble," Michelot interposed.  "That is not
the gentleman's name.  I am his servant."

There was a moment's pause, then came Vilmorin's shrill voice.

"You lie, knave!  M. de Mancini is here.  You are M. de Luynes's lackey,
and where the one is, there shall we find the other."

"M. de Luynes?" came a voice unknown to me.  "That is Mancini's sword-blade
of a friend, is it not?  Well, why does he hide himself?  Where is he? 
Where is your master, rascal?"

"I am here, Messieurs," I answered, throwing wide the door, and appearing,
grim and arrogant, upon the threshold.

Mort de ma vie!  Had they beheld the Devil, St. Auban and Vilmorin could
not have looked less pleased than they did when their eyes lighted upon me,
standing there surveying them with a sardonic grin.

St. Auban muttered an oath, Vilmorin stifled a cry, whilst he who had so
loudly called to know where I hid myself--a frail little fellow, in the
uniform of the gardes du corps--now stood silent and abashed.

The two women, who had withdrawn into a dark and retired corner of the
apartment, stood gazing with interest upon this pretty scene.

"Well, gentlemen?" I asked in a tone of persiflage, as I took a step
towards them.  "Have you naught to say to me, now that I have answered your
imperious summons?  What!  All dumb?"

"Our affair is not with you," said St. Auban, curtly.

"Pardon!  Why, then, did you inquire where I was?"

"Messieurs," exclaimed Vilmorin, whose face assumed the pallor usual to it
in moments of peril, "meseems we have been misinformed, and that M. de
Mancini is not here.  Let us seek elsewhere."

"Most excellent advice, gentlemen," I commented,--"seek elsewhere."

"Monsieur," cried the little officer, turning purple, "it occurs to me that
you are mocking us."

"Mocking you!  Mocking you?  Mocking a gentleman who has been tied to so
huge a sword as yours.  Surely--surely, sir, you do not think--"

"I'll not endure it," he broke in.  "You shall answer to me for this."

"Have a care, sir," I cried in alarm as he rushed forward.  "Have a care,
sir, lest you trip over your sword."

He halted, drew himself up, and, with a magnificent gesture: "I am Armand
de Malpertuis, lieutenant of his Majesty's guards," he announced, "and I
shall be grateful if you will do me the honour of taking a turn with me,
outside."

"I am flattered beyond measure, M. Malappris--"

"Mal-per-tuis," he corrected furiously.

"Malpertuis," I echoed.  "I am honoured beyond words, but I do not wish to
take a turn."

"Mille diables, sir!  Don't you understand?  We must fight."

"Must we, indeed?  Again I am honoured; but, Monsieur, I don't fight
sparrows."

"Gentlemen!  Gentlemen!" cried St. Auban, thrusting himself between us. 
"Malpertuis, have the goodness to wait until one affair is concluded before
you create a second one.  Now, M. de Luynes, will you tell me whether M. de
Mancini is here or not?"

"What if he should be?"

"You will be wise to withdraw--we shall be three to two."

"Three to two!  Surely, Marquis, your reckoning is at fault.  You cannot
count the Vicomte there as one; his knees are knocking together; at best he
is but a woman in man's clothes.  As for your other friend, unless his
height misleads me, he is but a boy.  Therefore, Monsieur, you see that the
advantage is with us.  We are two men opposed to a man, a woman, and a
child, so that--"

"In Heaven's name, sir," cried St. Auban, again interposing himself betwixt
me and the bellicose Malpertuis, "will you cease this foolishness?  A word
with you in private, M. de Luynes."

I permitted him to take me by the sleeve, and lead me aside, wondering the
while what curb it was that he was setting upon his temper, and what wily
motives he might have for adopting so conciliatory a tone.

With many generations to come, the name of César de St. Auban must perforce
be familiar as that of one of the greatest roysterers and most courtly
libertines of the early days of Louis XIV., as well as that of a rabid
anti-cardinalist and frondeur, and one of the earliest of that new cabal of
nobility known as the petits-maîtres, whose leader the Prince de Condé was
destined to become a few years later.  He was a man of about my own age,
that is to say, between thirty-two and thirty-three, and of my own frame,
tall, spare, and active.  On his florid, débonnair countenance was stamped
his character of bon-viveur.  In dress he was courtly in the extreme.  His
doublet and haut-de-chausses were of wine-coloured velvet, richly laced,
and he still affected the hanging sleeves of a fast-disappearing fashion. 
Valuable lace filled the tops of his black boots, a valuable jewel
glistened here and there upon his person, and one must needs have
pronounced him a fop but for the strength and resoluteness of his bearing,
and the long rapier that hung from his gold-embroidered baldrick.  Such in
brief is a portrait of the man who now confronted me, his fine blue eyes
fixed upon my face, wherein methinks he read but little, search though he
might.

"M. de Luynes," he murmured at last, "you appear to find entertainment in
making enemies, and you do it wantonly."

"Have you brought me aside to instruct me in the art of making friends?"

"Possibly, M. de Luynes; and without intending an offence, permit me to
remark that you need them."

"Mayhap.  But I do not seek them."

"I have it in my heart to wish that you did; for I, M. de Luynes, seek to
make a friend of you.  Nay, do not smile in that unbelieving fashion.  I
have long esteemed you for those very qualities of dauntlessness and
defiance which have brought you so rich a crop of hatred.  If you doubt my
words, perhaps you will recall my attitude towards you in the horse-market
yesterday, and let that speak.  Without wishing to remind you of a service
done, I may yet mention that I stood betwixt you and the mob that sought to
avenge my friend Canaples.  He was my friend; you stood there, as indeed
you have always stood, in the attitude of a foe.  You wounded Canaples,
maltreated Vilmorin, defied me; and yet but for my intervention, mille
diables sir, you had been torn to pieces."

"All this I grant is very true, Monsieur," I made reply, with deep
suspicion in my soul.  "Yet, pardon me, if I confess that to me it proves
no more than that you acted as a generous enemy.  Pardon my bluntness also-
-but what profit do you look to make from gaining my friendship?"

"You are frank, Monsieur," he said, colouring slightly, "I will be none the
less so.  I am a frondeur, an anti-cardinalist.  In a word, I am a
gentleman and a Frenchman.  An interloping foreigner, miserly, mean-souled,
and Jesuitical, springs up, wins himself into the graces of a foolish,
impetuous, wilful queen, and climbs the ladder which she holds for him to
the highest position in France.  I allude to Mazarin; this Cardinal who is
not a priest; this minister of France who is not a Frenchman; this
belittler of nobles who is not a gentleman."

"Mort Dieu, Monsieur--"

"One moment, M. de Luynes.  This adventurer, not content with the millions
which his avaricious talons have dragged from the people for his own
benefit, seeks, by means of illustrious alliances, to enrich a pack of
beggarly nieces and nephews that he has rescued from the squalor of their
Sicilian homes to bring hither.  His nieces, the Mancinis and Martinozzis,
he is marrying to Dukes and Princes.  'T is not nice to witness, but 't is
the affair of the men who wed them.  In seeking, however, to marry his
nephew Andrea to one of the greatest heiresses in France, he goes too far. 
Yvonne de Canaples is for some noble countryman of her own--there are many
suitors to her hand--and for no nephew of Giulio Mazarini.  Her brother
Eugène, himself, thinks thus, and therein, M. de Luynes, you have the real
motive of the quarrel which he provoked with Andrea, and which, had you not
interfered, could have had but one ending."

"Why do you tell me all this, Monsieur?" I inquired coldly, betraying none
of the amazement his last words gave birth to.

"So that you may know the true position of affairs, and, knowing it, see
the course which the name you bear must bid you follow.  Because Canaples
failed am I here to-day.  I had not counted upon meeting you, but since I
have met you, I have set the truth before you, confident that you will now
withdraw from an affair to which no real interest can bind you, leaving
matters to pursue their course."

He eyed me, methought, almost anxiously from under his brows, as he awaited
my reply.  It was briefer than he looked for.

"You have wasted time, Monsieur."

"How?  You persist?"

"Yes.  I persist.  Yet for the Cardinal I care nothing.  Mazarin has
dismissed me from his service unjustly and unpaid.  He has forbidden me his
nephew's company.  In fact, did he know of my presence here with M. de
Mancini, he would probably carry out his threat to hang me."

"Ciel!" cried St. Auban, "you are mad, if that be so.  France is divided
into two parties, cardinalists and anti-cardinalists.  You, sir, without
belonging to either, stand alone, an enemy to both.  Your attitude is
preposterous!"

"Nay, sir, not alone.  There is Andrea de Mancini.  The boy is my only
friend in a world of enemies.  I am growing fond of him, Monsieur, and I
will stand by him, while my arm can wield a sword, in all that may advance
his fortunes and his happiness.  That, Monsieur, is my last word."

"Do not forget, M. de Luynes," he said--his suaveness all departed of a
sudden, and his tone full of menace and acidity--"do not forget that when a
wall may not be scaled it may be broken through."

"Aye, Monsieur, but many of those who break through stand in danger of
being crushed by the falling stones," I answered, entering into the spirit
of his allegory.

"There are many ways of striking," he said.

"And many ways of being struck," I retorted with a sneer.

Our words grew sinister, our eyes waxed fiery, and more might have followed
had not the door leading to the staircase opened at that moment to admit
Andrea himself.  He came, elegant in dress and figure, with a smile upon
his handsome young face, whose noble features gave the lie to St. Auban's
assertion that he had been drawn from a squalid Sicilian home.  Such faces
are not bred in squalor.

In utter ignorance of the cabal against him, he greeted St. Auban--who was
well known to him--with a graceful bow, and also Vilmorin, who stood in the
doorway with Malpertuis, and who at the sight of Mancini grew visibly ill
at ease.  In coming to Choisy, the Vicomte had clearly expected to do no
more than second St. Auban in the duel which he thought to see forced upon
Andrea.  He now realised that if a fight there was, he might, by my
presence, be forced into it.  Malpertuis looked fierce and tugged at his
moustachios, whilst his companions returned Andrea's salutation--St. Auban
gravely, and Vilmorin hesitatingly.

"Ha, Gaston," said the boy, advancing towards me, "our host tells me that
two ladies who have been shipwrecked here wish to do me the honour of
occupying my apartments for an hour or so.  Ha, there they are," he added,
as the two girls came suddenly forward.  Then bowing--"Mesdames, I am
enchanted to set the poor room at your disposal for as long as it may
please you to honour it."

As the ladies--of whose presence St. Auban had been unaware--appeared
before us, I shot a glance at the Marquis, and, from the start he gave upon
beholding them, I saw that things were as I had suspected.

Before they could reply to Andrea, St. Auban suddenly advanced:

"Mesdemoiselles," quoth he, "forgive me if in this miserable light I did
not earlier discover your presence and offer you my services.  I do so now,
with the hope that you will honour me by making use of them."

"Merci, M. de St. Auban," replied the dark-haired one--whom I guessed to be
none other than Yvonne de Canaples herself--"but, since this gentleman so
gallantly cedes his apartments to us, all our needs are satisfied.  It
would be churlish to refuse that which is so graciously proffered."

Her tone was cold in the extreme, as also was the inclination of her head
wherewith she favoured the Marquis.  In arrant contrast were the pretty
words of thanks she addressed to Andrea, who stood by, blushing like a
girl, and a damnable scowl did this contrast draw from St. Auban, a scowl
that lasted until, escorted by the landlord, the two ladies had withdrawn.

There was an awkward pause when they were gone, and methought from the look
on St. Auban's face that he was about to provoke a fight after all.  Not
so, however, for, after staring at us like a clown whilst one might tell a
dozen, he turned and strode to the door, calling for his horse and those of
his companions.

"Au révoir, M. de Luynes," he said significantly as he got into the saddle.

"Au révoir, M. de Luynes," said also Malpertuis, coming close up to me. 
"We shall meet again, believe me."

"Pray God that we may not, if you would die in your bed," I answered
mockingly.  "Adieu!"




CHAPTER VI

OF HOW ANDREA BECAME LOVE-SICK


With what fictions I could call to mind I put off Andrea's questions
touching the peculiar fashion of St. Auban's leave-taking.  Tell him the
truth and expose to him the situation whereof he was himself the
unconscious centre I dared not, lest his high-spirited impetuosity should
cause him to take into his own hands the reins of the affair, and thus
drive himself into irreparable disaster.

Andrea himself showed scant concern, however, and was luckily content with
my hurriedly invented explanations; his thoughts had suddenly found
occupation in another and a gentler theme than the ill-humour of men, and
presently his tongue betrayed them when he drew the conversation to the
ladies to whom he had resigned his apartments.

"Pardieu! Gaston," he burst out, "she is a lovely maid--saw you ever a
bonnier?"

"Indeed she is very beautiful," I answered, laughing to myself at the
thought of how little he dreamt that it was of Yvonne St. Albaret de
Canaples that he spoke, and not minded for the while to enlighten him.

"If she be as kind and gentle as she is beautiful, Gaston, well--Uncle
Giulio's plans are likely to suffer shipwreck.  I shall not leave Choisy
until I have spoken to her; in fact, I shall not leave until she leaves."

"Nevertheless, we shall still be able to set out, as we had projected,
after dining, for in an hour, or two at most, they will proceed on their
journey."

He was silent for some moments, then:

"To the devil with the Cardinal's plans!" quoth he, banging his fist on the
table.  "I shall not go to Blois."

"Pooh!  Why not?"

"Why not?"  He halted for a moment, then in a meandering tone--"You have
read perchance in story-books," he said, "of love being born from the first
meeting of two pairs of eyes, as a spark is born of flint and steel, and
you may have laughed at the conceit, as I have laughed at it.  But laugh no
more, Gaston; for I who stand before you am one who has experienced this
thing which poets tell of, and which hitherto I have held in ridicule.  I
will not go to Blois because--because--enfin, because I intend to go where
she goes."

"Then, mon cher, you will go to Blois.  You will go to Blois, if not as a
dutiful nephew, resigned to obey his reverend uncle's wishes, at least
because fate forces you to follow a pair of eyes that have--hum, what was
it you said they did?"

"Do you say that she is going to Blois?  How do you know?"

"Eh?  How do I know?  Oh, I heard her servant speaking with the hostler."

"So much the better, then; for thus if his Eminence gets news of my
whereabouts, the news will not awaken his ever-ready suspicions.  Ciel! How
beautiful she is!  Noted you her eyes, her skin, and what hair, mon Dieu! 
Like threads of gold!"

"Like threads of gold?" I echoed.  "You are dreaming, boy.  Oh, St. Gris! I
understand; you are speaking of the fair-haired chit that was with her."

He eyed me in amazement.

"'T is you whose thoughts are wandering to that lanky, nose-in-the-air
Madame who accompanied her."

I began a laugh that I broke off suddenly as I realised that it was not
Yvonne after all who had imprisoned his wits.  The Cardinal's plans were,
indeed, likely to miscarry if he persisted thus.

"But 't was the nose-in-the-air Madame, as you call her, with whom you
spoke!"

"Aye, but it was the golden-haired lady that held my gaze.  Pshaw!  Who
would mention them in a breath?"

"Who, indeed?" said I, but with a different meaning.

Thereafter, seeing him listless, I suggested a turn in the village to
stretch our limbs before dining.  But he would have none of it, and when I
pressed the point with sound reasoning touching the benefits which health
may cull from exercise, he grew petulant as a wayward child.  She might
descend whilst he was absent.  Indeed, she might require some slight
service that lay, perchance, in his power to render her.  What an
opportunity would he not lose were he abroad?  She might even depart before
we returned; and than that no greater calamity could just then befall him. 
No, he would not stir a foot from the inn.  A fig for exercise! to the
devil with health! who sought an appetite?  Not he.  He wished for no
appetite--could contrive no base and vulgar appetite for food, whilst his
soul, he swore, was being consumed by the overwhelming, all-effacing
appetite to behold her.

Such meandering fools are most of us at nineteen, when the heart is young--
a flawless mirror ready to hold the image of the first fair maid that looks
into it through our eyes, and as ready--Heaven knows!--to relinquish it
when the substance is withdrawn.

But I, who was not nineteen, and the mirror of whose heart--to pursue my
metaphor--was dulled, warped, and cracked with much ill­usage, grew sick of
the boy's enthusiasm and the monotony of a conversation which I could
divert into no other channel from that upon which it had been started by a
little slip of a girl with hair of gold and sapphire eyes--I use Andrea's
words.  And so I rose, and bidding him take root in the tavern, if so it
pleased his fancy, I left him there.

Wrapped in my cloak, for the air was raw and damp, I strode aimlessly
along, revolving in my mind what had befallen at the Connétable that
morning, and speculating upon the issue that this quaint affair might have. 
In matters of love, or rather, of matrimony--which is not quite the same
thing--opposition is common enough.  But the opposers are usually members
of either of the interested families.  Now the families--that is to say,
the heads of the families--being agreed and even anxious to bring about the
union of Yvonne de Canaples and Andrea de Mancini, it was something new to
have a cabal of persons who, from motives of principle--as St. Auban had
it--should oppose the alliance so relentlessly as to even resort to
violence if no other means occurred to them.  It seemed vastly probable
that Andrea would be disposed of by a knife in the back, and more than
probable that a like fate would be reserved for me, since I had constituted
myself his guardian angel.  For my own part, however, I had a pronounced
distaste to ending my days in so unostentatious a fashion.  I had also a
notion that I should prove an exceedingly difficult person to assassinate,
and that those who sought to slip a knife into me would find my hide
peculiarly tough, and my hand peculiarly ready to return the compliment.

So deeply did I sink into ponderings of this character that it was not
until two hours afterwards that I again found myself drawing near the
Connétable.

I reached the inn to find by the door a coach, and by that coach Andrea; he
stood bareheaded, despite the cold, conversing, with all outward semblances
of profound respect, with those within it.

So engrossed was he and so ecstatic, that my approach was unheeded, and
when presently I noted that the coach was Mademoiselle de Canaples's, I
ceased to wonder at the boy's unconsciousness of what took place around
him.

Clearly the farrier had been found at last, and the horse shod afresh
during my absence.  Loath to interrupt so pretty a scene, I waited, aloof,
until these adieux should be concluded, and whilst I waited there came to
me from the carriage a sweet, musical voice that was not Yvonne's.

"May we not learn at least, Monsieur, the name of the gentleman to whose
courtesy we are indebted for having spent the past two hours without
discomfort?"

"My name, Mademoiselle, is Andrea de Mancini, that of the humblest of your
servants, and one to whom your thanks are a more than lavish payment for
the trivial service he may have been fortunate enough to render you."

Dame!  What glibness doth a tongue acquire at Court!

"M. Andrea de Mancini?" came Yvonne's voice in answer.  "Surely a relative
of the Lord Cardinal?"

"His nephew, Mademoiselle."

"Ah!  My father, sir, is a great admirer of your uncle."

From the half-caressing tone, as much as from the very words she uttered, I
inferred that she was in ignorance of the compact into which his Eminence
had entered with her father--a bargain whereof she was herself a part.

"I am rejoiced, indeed, Mademoiselle," replied Andrea with a bow, as though
the compliment had been paid to him.  "Am I indiscreet in asking the name
of Monsieur your father?"

"Indiscreet!  Nay, Monsieur.  You have a right to learn the name of those
who are under an obligation to you.  My father is the Chevalier de
Canaples, of whom it is possible that you may have heard.  I am Yvonne de
Canaples, of whom it is unlikely that you should have heard, and this is my
sister Geneviève, whom a like obscurity envelops."

The boy's lips moved, but no sound came from them, whilst his cheeks went
white and red by turns.  His courtliness of a moment ago had vanished, and
he stood sheepish and gauche as a clown.  At length he so far mastered
himself as to bow and make a sign to the coachman, who thereupon gathered
up his reins.

"You are going presumably to Blois?" he stammered with a nervous laugh, as
if the journey were a humorous proceeding.

"Yes, Monsieur," answered Geneviève, "we are going home."

"Why, then, it is possible that we shall meet again.  I, too, am travelling
in that direction.  A bientôt, Mesdemoiselles!"

The whip cracked, the coach began to move, and the creaking of its wheels
drowned, so far as I was concerned, the female voices that answered his
farewell.  The coachman roused his horses into an amble; the amble became a
trot, and the vehicle vanished round a corner.  Some few idlers stopped to
gaze stupidly after it, but not half so stupidly as did my poor Andrea,
standing bareheaded where the coach had left him.

I drew near, and laid my hand on his shoulder; at the touch he started like
one awakened suddenly, and looked up.

"Ah--you are returned, Gaston."

"To find that you have made a discovery, and are overwhelmed by your
error."

"My error?"

"Yes--that of falling in love with the wrong one.  Hélas, it is but one of
those ironical jests wherewith Fate amuses herself at every step of our
lives.  Had you fallen in love with Yvonne--and it passes my understanding
why you did not--everything would have gone smoothly with your wooing. 
Unfortunately, you have a preference for fair hair--"

"Have done," he interrupted peevishly.  "What does it signify?  To the
devil with Mazarin's plans!"

"So you said this morning."

"Yes, when I did not even dream her name was Canaples."

"Nevertheless, she is the wrong Canaples."

"For my uncle--but, mille diables! sir, 't is I who am to wed, and I shall
wed as my heart bids me."

"Hum!  And Mazarin?"

"Faugh!" he answered, with an expressive shrug.

"Well, since you are resolved, let us dine."

"I have no appetite."

"Let us dine notwithstanding.  Eat you must if you would live; and unless
you live--think of it!--you'll never reach Blois."

"Gaston, you are laughing at me!  I do not wish to eat."

I surveyed him gravely, with my arms akimbo.

"Can love so expand the heart of man that it fills even his stomach?  Well,
well, if you will not eat, at least have the grace to bear me company at
table.  Come, Andrea," and I took his arm, "let us ascend to that chamber
which she has but just quitted.  Who can tell but that we shall find there
some token of her recent presence?  If nothing more, at least the air will
be pervaded by the perfume she affected, and since you scorn the humble
food of man, you can dine on that."

He smiled despite himself as I drew him towards the staircase.

"Scoffer!" quoth he.  "Your callous soul knows naught of love."

"Whereas you have had three hours' experience.  Pardieu!  You shall
instruct me in the gentle art."

Alas, for those perfumes upon which I had proposed that he should feast
himself.  If any the beautiful Geneviève had left behind her, they had been
smothered in the vulgar yet appetising odour of the steaming ragoût that
occupied the table.

I prevailed at length upon the love-lorn boy to take some food, but I could
lead him to talk of naught save Geneviève de Canaples.  Presently he took
to chiding me for the deliberateness wherewith I ate, and betrayed thereby
his impatience to be in the saddle and after her.  I argued that whilst she
saw him not she might think of him.  But the argument, though sound,
availed me little, and in the end I was forced--for all that I am a man
accustomed to please myself--to hurriedly end my repast, and pronounce
myself ready to start.

As Andrea had with him some store of baggage--since his sojourn at Blois
was likely to be of some duration--he travelled in a coach.  Into this
coach, then, we climbed--he and I.  His valet, Silvio, occupied the seat
beside the coachman, whilst my stalwart Michelot rode behind leading my
horse by the bridle.  In this fashion we set out, and ere long the silence
of my thoughtful companion, the monotonous rumbling of the vehicle, and,
most important of all factors, the good dinner that I had consumed, bred in
me a torpor that soon became a sleep.

From a dream that, bound hand and foot, I was being dragged by St. Auban
and Malpertuis before the Cardinal, I awakened with a start to find that we
were clattering already through the streets of Etrechy; so that whilst I
had slept we had covered some six leagues.  Twilight had already set in,
and Andrea lay back idly in the carriage, holding a book which it was
growing too dark to read, and between the leaves of which he had slipped
his forefinger to mark the place where he had paused.

His eyes met mine as I looked round, and he smiled.  "I should not have
thought, Gaston," he said, "that a man with so seared a conscience could
have slept thus soundly."

"I have not slept soundly," I grumbled, recalling my dream.

"Pardieu! you have slept long, at least."

"Out of self-protection; so that I might not hear the name of Geneviève de
Canaples.  'T is a sweet name, but you render it monotonous."

He laughed good-humouredly.

"Have you never loved, Gaston?"

"Often."

"Ah--but I mean did you never conceive a great passion?"

"Hundreds, boy."

"But never such a one as mine!"

"Assuredly not; for the world has never seen its fellow.  Be good enough to
pull the cord, you Cupid incarnate.  I wish to alight."

"You wish to alight!  Why?"

"Because I am sick of love.  I am going to ride awhile with Michelot whilst
you dream of her coral lips, her sapphire eyes, and what other gems
constitute her wondrous personality."

Two minutes later I was in the saddle riding with Michelot in the wake of
the carriage.  As I have already sought to indicate in these pages,
Michelot was as much my friend as my servant.  It was therefore no more
than natural that I should communicate to him my fears touching what might
come of the machinations of St. Auban, Vilmorin, and even, perchance, of
that little firebrand, Malpertuis.

Night fell while we talked, and at last the lights of Étampes, where we
proposed to lie, peeped at us from a distance, and food and warmth.

It was eight o'clock when we reached the town, and a few moments later we
rattled into the courtyard of the Hôtel de l'Épée.

Andrea was out of temper to learn that Mesdemoiselles de Canaples had
reached the place two hours earlier, taken fresh horses, and proceeded on
their journey, intending to reach Monnerville that night.  He was even mad
enough to propose that we should follow their example, but my sober
arguments prevailed, and at Étampes we stayed till morning.

Andrea withdrew early.  But I, having chanced upon a certain M. de la
Vrillière, a courtier of Vilmorin's stamp, with whom I had some slight
acquaintance, and his purse being heavier than his wits, I spent a passing
profitable evening in his company.  This pretty gentleman hailed my advent
with a delight that amazed me, and suggested that we should throw a main
together to kill time.  The dice were found, and so clumsily did he use
them that in half an hour, playing for beggarly crowns, he had lost twenty
pistoles.  Next he lost his temper, and with an oath pitched the cubes into
the fire, swearing that they were toys for children and that I must grant
him his révanche with cards.  The cards were furnished us, and with a
fortune that varied little we played lansquenet until long past midnight. 
The fire died out in the grate, and the air grew chill, until at last, with
a violent sneeze, La Vrillière protested that he would play no more.

Cursing himself for the unluckiest being alive, the fool bade me good-
night, and left me seventy pistoles richer than when I had met him.




CHAPTER VII

THE CHÂTEAU DE CANAPLES


Despite the strenuous efforts which Andrea compelled us to put forth, we
did not again come up with Mesdemoiselles de Canaples, who in truth must
have travelled with greater speed than ladies are wont to.

This circumstance bred much discomfort in Andrea's bosom; for in it he read
that his Geneviève thought not of him as he of her, else, knowing that he
followed the same road, she would have retarded their progress so that he
might overtake them.  Thus argued he when on the following night, which was
that of Friday, we lay at Orleans.  But when towards noon on Saturday our
journey ended with our arrival at Blois, he went so far as to conclude that
she had hastened on expressly to avoid him.  Now, from what I had seen of
Mademoiselle Yvonne, methought I might hazard a guess that she it was who
commanded in these--and haply, too, in other--matters, and that the manner
of their journey had been such as was best to her wishes.

With such an argument did I strive to appease Andrea's doubts; but all in
vain--which is indeed no matter for astonishment, for to reason with a man
in love is to reason with one who knows no reason.

After a brief halt at the Lys de France--at which hostelry I hired myself a
room--we set out for the Château de Canaples, which is situated on the left
bank of the Loire, at a distance of about half a league from Blois in the
direction of Tours.

We cut a brave enough figure as we rode down the Rue Vieille attended by
our servants, and many a rustic Blaisois stopped to gape at us, to nudge
his companion, and point us out, whispering the word "Paris."

I had donned my grey velvet doublet--deeming the occasion worthy of it--
whilst Andrea wore a handsome suit of black, with gold lace, which for
elegance it would have been difficult to surpass.  An air of pensiveness
added interest to his handsome face and courtly figure, and methought that
Geneviève must be hard to please if she fell not a victim to his wooing.

We proceeded along the road bordering the Loire, a road of rare beauty at
any other season of the year, but now bare of foliage, grey, bleak, and
sullen as the clouds overhead, and as cold to the eye as was the sharp wind
to the flesh.  As we rode I fell to thinking of what my reception at the
Château de Canaples was likely to be, and almost to regret that I had
permitted Andrea to persuade me to accompany him.  Long ago I had known the
Chevalier de Canaples, and for all the disparity in our ages--for he
counted twice my years--we had been friends and comrades.  That, however,
was ten years ago, in the old days when I owned something more than the
name of Luynes.  To-day I appeared before him as a ruined adventurer, a
soldier of fortune, a ruffler, a duellist who had almost slain his son in a
brawl, whose details might be known to him, but not its origin.  Seeing me
in the company of Andrea de Mancini he might--who could say?--even deem me
one of those parasites who cling to young men of fortune so that they may
live at their expense.  That the daughter would have formed such a conceit
of me I was assured; it but remained to see with what countenance the
father would greet me.

From such speculations I was at length aroused by our arrival at the gates
of the Canaples park.  Seeing them wide open, we rode between the two
massive columns of granite (each surmounted by a couchant lion holding the
escutcheon of the Canaples) and proceeded at an ambling pace up the avenue. 
Through the naked trees the château became discernible--a brave old castle
that once had been the stronghold of a feudal race long dead.  Grey it was,
and attuned, that day, to the rest of the grey landscape.  But at its base
the ivy grew thick and green, and here and there long streaks of it crept
up almost to the battlements, whilst in one place it had gone higher yet
and clothed one of the quaint old turrets.  A moat there had once been, but
this was now filled up and arranged into little mounds that became flower-
beds in summer.

Resigning our horses to the keeping of our servants, we followed the grave
maître d'hôtel who had received us.  He led us across the spacious hall,
which had all the appearance of an armoury, and up the regal staircase of
polished oak on to a landing wide and lofty.  Here, turning to the left, he
opened a door and desired us to give ourselves the trouble of awaiting the
Chevalier.  We entered a handsome room, hung in costly Dutch tapestry, and
richly furnished, yet with a sobriety of colour almost puritanical.  The
long windows overlooked a broad terrace, enclosed in a grey stone
balustrade, from which some half-dozen steps led to a garden below.  Beyond
that ran the swift waters of the Loire, and beyond that again, in the
distance, we beheld the famous Château de Chambord, built in the days of
the first Francis.

I had but remarked these details when the door again opened, to admit a
short, slender man in whose black hair and beard the hand of time had
scattered but little of that white dust that marks its passage.  His face
was pale, thin, and wrinkled, and his grey eyes had a nervous, restless
look that dwelt not long on anything.  He was dressed in black, with simple
elegance, and his deep collar and ruffles were of the finest point.

"Welcome to Canaples, M. de Mancini!" he exclaimed, as he hurried forward,
with a smile so winning that his countenance appeared transfigured by it. 
"Welcome most cordially!  We had not hoped that you would arrive so soon,
but fortunately my daughters, to whom you appear to have been of service at
Choisy, warned me that you were journeying hither.  Your apartments,
therefore, are prepared for you, and we hope that you will honour Canaples
by long remaining its guest."

Andrea thanked him becomingly.

"In truth," he added, "my departure from Paris was somewhat sudden, but I
have a letter here from Monseigneur my uncle, which explains the matter."

"No explanation is needed, my dear Andrea," replied the old nobleman,
abandoning the formalities that had marked his welcoming speech.  "How left
you my Lord Cardinal?" he asked, as he took the letter.

"In excellent health, but somewhat harassed, I fear, by the affairs of
State."

"Ah, yes, yes.  But stay.  You are not alone."  And Canaples's grey eyes
shot an almost furtive glance of inquiry in my direction.  A second glance
followed the first and the Chevalier's brows were knit.  Then he came a
step nearer, scanning my face.

"Surely, surely, Monsieur," he exclaimed before Andrea had time to answer
him.  "Were you not at Rocroi?"

"Your memory flatters me, Monsieur," I replied with a laugh.  "I was indeed
at Rocroi--captain in the regiment of chévaux-légers whereof you were
Mestre de Champ."

"His name," said Andrea, "is Gaston de Luynes, my very dear friend,
counsellor, and, I might almost say, protector."

"Pardieu, yes!  Gaston de Luynes!" he ejaculated, seizing my hand in an
affectionate grip.  "But how have you fared since Rocroi was fought?  For a
soldier of such promise, one might have predicted great things in ten
years."

"Hélas, Monsieur!  I was dismissed the service after Senlac."

"Dismissed the service!"

"Pah!" I laughed, not without bitterness, 't is a long story and an ugly
one, divided 'twixt the dice-box, the bottle, and the scabbard.  Ten years
ago I was a promising young captain, ardent and ambitious; to-day I am a
broken ruffler, unrecognised by my family--a man without hope, without
ambition, almost without honour."

I know not what it was that impelled me to speak thus.  Haply the wish that
since he must soon learn to what depths Gaston de Luynes had sunk, he
should at least learn it from my own lips at the outset.

He shuddered at my concluding words, and had not Andrea at that moment put
his arm affectionately upon my shoulder, and declared me the bravest fellow
and truest friend in all the world, it is possible that the Chevalier de
Canaples would have sought an excuse to be rid of me.  Such men as he seek
not the acquaintance of such men as I.

To please Andrea was, however, of chief importance in his plans, and to
that motive I owe it that he pressed me to remain a guest at the château. 
I declined the honour with the best grace I could command, determined that
whilst Andrea remained at Canaples I would lodge at the Lys de France in
Blois, independent and free to come or go as my fancy bade me.  His
invitation that I should at least dine at Canaples I accepted; but with the
condition that he should repeat his invitation after he had heard something
that I wished to tell him.  He assented with a puzzled look, and when
presently Andrea repaired to his apartments, and we were alone, I began.

"You have doubtlessly received news, Monsieur, of a certain affair in which
your son had recently the misfortune to be dangerously wounded?"

We were standing by the great marble fireplace, and Canaples was resting
one of his feet upon the huge brass andirons.  He made a gesture of
impatience as I spoke.

"My son, sir, is a fool!  A good-for-nothing fool!  Oh, I have heard of
this affair, a vulgar tavern brawl, the fifth in which his name has been
involved and besmirched.  I had news this morning by a courier dispatched
me by my friend St. Simon, who imagines that I am deeply concerned in that
young profligate.  I learn that he is out of danger, and that in a month or
so, he will be about again and ready to disgrace the name of Canaples
afresh.  But there, sir; I crave your pardon for the interruption."

I bowed, and when in answer to my questions he told me that he was in
ignorance of the details of the affair of which I spoke, I set about laying
those details before him.  Beginning with the original provocation in the
Palais Royal and ending with the fight in the horse-market, I related the
whole story to him, but in an impersonal manner, and keeping my own name
out of my narrative.  When I had done, Canaples muttered an oath of the
days of the fourth Henry.

"Ventre St. Gris!  Does the dog carry his audacity so far as to dare come
betwixt me and my wishes, and to strive against them?  He sought to kill
Mancini, eh?  Would to Heaven he had died by the hand of this fellow who
shielded the lad!"

"Monsieur!" I cried, aghast at so unnatural an expression.

"Pah!" he cried harshly.  "He is my son in name alone, filial he never
was."

"Nevertheless, Monsieur, he is still your son, your heir."

"My heir?  And what, pray, does he inherit?  A title--a barren, landless
title!  By his shameful conduct he alienated the affection of his uncle,
and his uncle has disinherited him in favour of Yvonne.  'T is she who will
be mistress of this château with its acres of land reaching from here to
Blois, and three times as far on the other side.  My brother, sir, was the
rich Canaples, the owner of all this, and by his testament I am his heir
during my lifetime, the estates going to Yvonne at my death.  So that you
see I have naught to leave; but if I had, not a dénier should go to my
worthless son!"

He spread his thin hands before the blaze, and for a moment there was
silence.  Then I proceeded to tell him of the cabal which had been formed
against Mancini, and of the part played by St. Auban.  At the mention of
that name he started as if I had stung him.

"What!" he thundered.  "Is that ruffian also in the affair?  Sangdieu!  His
motives are not far to seek.  He is a suitor--an unfavoured suitor--for the
hand of Yvonne, that seemingly still hopes.  But you have not told me,
Monsieur, the name of this man who has stood betwixt Andrea and his
assassins."

"Can you not guess, Monsieur?" quoth I, looking him squarely in the face. 
"Did you not hear Andrea call me, even now, his protector."

"You?  And with what motive, pray?"

"At first, as I have told you, because the Cardinal gave me no choice in
the matter touching your son.  Since then my motive has lain in my
friendship for the boy.  He has been kind and affectionate to one who has
known little kindness or affection in life.  I seek to repay him by
advancing his interests and his happiness.  That, Monsieur, is why I am
here to-day--to shield him from St. Auban and his fellows should they
appear again, as I believe they will."

The old man stood up and eyed me for a moment as steadily as his
vacillating glance would permit him, then he held out his hand.

"I trust, Monsieur," he said, "that you will do me the honour to dine with
us, and that whilst you are at Blois we shall see you at Canaples as often
as it may please you to cross its threshold."

I took his hand, but without enthusiasm, for I understood that his words
sprang from no warmth of heart for me, but merely from the fact that he
beheld in me a likely ally to his designs of raising his daughter to the
rank of Duchess.

Eugène de Canaples may have been a good-for-nothing knave; still, methought
his character scarce justified the callous indifference manifested by this
selfish, weak-minded old man towards his own son.

There was a knock at the door, and a lackey--the same Guilbert whom I had
seen at Choisy in Mademoiselle's company--appeared with the announcement
that the Chevalier was served.




CHAPTER VIII

THE FORESHADOW OF DISASTER


In the spacious dining salon of the Château de Canaples I found the two
daughters of my host awaiting us--those same two ladies of the coach in
Place Vendôme and of the hostelry at Choisy, the dark and stately icicle,
Yvonne, and the fair, playful doll, Geneviève.

I bowed my best bow as the Chevalier presented me, and from the corner of
my eye, with inward malice, I watched them as I did so.  Geneviève curtsied
with a puzzled air and a sidelong glance at her sister.  Yvonne accorded me
the faintest, the coldest, inclination of her head, whilst her cheeks
assumed a colour that was unwonted.

"We have met before, I think, Monsieur," she said disdainfully.

"True, Mademoiselle--once," I answered, thinking only of the coach.

"Twice, Monsieur," she corrected, whereupon I recalled how she had
surprised me with my arm about the waist of the inn-keeper's daughter, and
had Heaven given me shame I might have blushed.  But if sweet Yvonne
thought to bring Gaston de Luynes to task for profiting by the good things
which God's providence sent his way, she was led by vanity into a
prodigious error.

"Twice, indeed, Mademoiselle.  But the service which you rendered me upon
the first occasion was so present to my mind just now that it eclipsed the
memory of our second meeting.  I have ever since desired, Mademoiselle,
that an opportunity might be mine wherein to thank you for the preservation
of my life.  I do so now, and at your service do I lay that life which you
preserved, and which is therefore as much yours as mine."

Strive as I might I could not rid my tone of an ironical inflection.  I was
goaded to it by her attitude, by the scornful turn of her lip and the
disdainful glance of her grey eyes--she had her father's eyes, saving that
her gaze was as steadfast as his was furtive.

"What is this?" quoth Canaples.  "You owe your life to my daughter?  Pray
tell me of it."

"With all my heart," I made haste to answer before Mademoiselle could
speak.  "A week ago, I disagreed upon a question of great delicacy with a
certain gentleman who shall be nameless.  The obvious result attended our
disagreement, and we fought 'neath the eyes of a vast company of
spectators.  Right was on my side, and the gentleman hurt himself upon my
sword.  Well, sir, the crowd snarled at me as though it were my fault that
this had so befallen, and I flouted the crowd in answer.  They were a
hundred opposed to one, and so confident did this circumstance render them
of their superiority, that for once those whelps displayed sufficient
valour to attack me.  I fled, and as a coach chanced to come that way, I
clutched at the window and hung there.  Within the coach there were two
ladies, and one of them, taking compassion upon me, invited me to enter and
thus rescued me.  That lady, sir," I ended with a bow, "was Mademoiselle
your daughter."

In his eyes I read it that he had guessed the name of my nameless
gentleman.

The ladies were struck dumb by my apparent effrontery.  Yvonne at last
recovered sufficiently to ask if my presence at the château arose from my
being attached to M. de Mancini.  Now, "attached" is an unpleasant word.  A
courtier is attached to the King; a soldier to the army; there is
humiliation in neither of these.  But to a private gentleman, a man may be
only attached as his secretary, his valet, or, possibly, as his bravo. 
Therein lay the sting of her carefully chosen word.

"I am M. de Mancini's friend," I answered with simple dignity.

For all reply she raised her eyebrows in token of surprise; Canaples looked
askance; I bit my lip, and an awkward silence followed, which, luckily, was
quickly ended by the appearance of Andrea.

The ladies received him graciously, and a faint blush might, to searching
eyes, have been perceived upon Geneviève's cheek.

There came a delicate exchange of compliments, after which we got to table,
and for my part I did ample justice to the viands.

I sat beside Geneviève, and vis-à-vis with Andrea, who occupied the place
of the honoured guest, at the host's right hand, with Yvonne beside him. 
Me it concerned little where I sat, since the repast was all that I could
look for; not so the others.  Andrea scowled at me because I was nearer to
Geneviève than he, and Yvonne frowned at me for other reasons.  By
Geneviève I was utterly disregarded, and my endeavours to converse were
sorely unsuccessful--for one may not converse alone.

I clearly saw that Yvonne only awaited an opportunity to unmask me, and
denounce me to her father as the man who had sought his son's life.

This opportunity, however, came not until the moment of my departure from
the château, that evening.  I was crossing the hail with the Chevalier de
Canaples, and we had stopped for a moment to admire a piece of old chain
armour of the days of the Crusaders.  Andrea and Geneviève had preceded us,
and passed out through the open doorway, whilst Yvonne lingered upon the
threshold looking back.

"I trust, M. de Luynes," said Canaples, as we moved towards her, "that you
will remember my invitation, and that whilst you remain at Biois we shall
see you here as often as you may be pleased to come; indeed, I trust that
you will be a daily visitor."

Before I could utter a reply--"Father," exclaimed Mademoiselle, coming
forward, "do you know to whom you are offering the hospitality of
Canaples?"

"Why that question, child?  To M. de Luynes, M. de Mancini's friend."

"And the would-be murderer of Eugène," she added fiercely.

Canaples started.

"Surely such affairs are not for women to meddle with," he cried. 
"Moreover, M. de Luynes has already given me all details of the affair."

Her eyes grew very wide at that.

"He has told you?  Yet you invite him hither?" she exclaimed.

"M. de Luynes has naught wherewith to reproach himself, nor have I.  Those
details which he has given me I may not impart to you; suffice it, however,
that I am satisfied that his conduct could not have been other than it was,
whereas that of my son reflects but little credit upon his name."

She stamped her foot, and her eyes, blazing with anger, passed from one to
the other of us.

"And you--you believe this man's story?"

"Yvonne!"

"Possibly," I interposed, coolly, "Mademoiselle may have received some
false account of it that justifies her evident unbelief in what I may have
told you."

It is not easy to give a lie unless you can prove it a lie.  I made her
realise this, and she bit her lip in vexation.  Dame!  What a pretty viper
I thought her at that moment!

"Let me add, Yvonne," said her father, "that M. de Luynes and I are old
comrades in arms."  Then turning to me--"My daughter, sir, is but a child,
and therefore hasty to pass judgment upon matters beyond her understanding. 
Forget this foolish outburst, and remember only my assurance of an ever
cordial welcome."

"With all my heart," I answered, after a moment's deliberation, during
which I had argued that for once I must stifle pride if I would serve
Andrea.

"Ough!" was all Mademoiselle's comment as she turned her back upon me. 
Nevertheless, I bowed and flourished my beaver to her retreating figure.

Clearly Mademoiselle entertained for me exactly that degree of fondness
which a pious hermit feels for the devil, and if I might draw conclusions
from what evidences I had had of the strength of her character and the
weakness of her father's, our sojourn at Blois promised to afford me little
delectation.  In fact, I foresaw many difficulties that might lead to
disaster should our Paris friends appear upon the scene--a contingency this
that seemed over-imminent.

It was not my wont, howbeit, to brood over the evils that the future might
hold, and to this I owe it that I slept soundly that night in my room at
the Lys de France.

It was a pleasant enough chamber on the first floor, overlooking the
street, and having an alcove attached to it which served for Michelot.

Next day I visited the Château de Canaples early in the afternoon.  The
weather was milder, and the glow of the sun heralded at last the near
approach of spring and brightened wondrously a landscape that had yesterday
worn so forbidding a look.

This change it must have been that drew the ladies, and Andrea with them,
to walk in the park, where I came upon them as I rode up.  Their laughter
rippled merrily and they appeared upon the best of terms until they espied
me.  My advent was like a cloud that foretells a storm, and drove
Mesdemoiselles away, when they had accorded me a greeting that contained
scant graciousness.

All unruffled by this act, from which I gathered that Yvonne the strong had
tutored Geneviève the frail concerning me, I consigned my horse to a groom
of the château, and linked arms with Andrea.

"Well, boy," quoth I, "what progress?"

He smiled radiantly.

"My hopes are all surpassed.  It exceeds belief that so poor a thing as I
should find favour in her eyes--what eyes, Gaston!"  He broke off with a
sigh of rapture.

"Peste, you have lost no time.  And so, already you know that you find
favour, eh!  How know you that?"

"How?  Need a man be told such things?  There is an inexpressible--"

"My good Andrea, seek not to express it, therefore," I interrupted hastily. 
"Let it suffice that the inexpressible exists, and makes you happy.  His
Eminence will doubtless share your joy!  Have you written to him?"

The mirth faded from the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades
'neath the blighting touch of frost.  What he said was so undutiful from a
nephew touching his uncle--particularly when that uncle is a prelate--that
I refrain from penning it.

We were joined just then by the Chevalier, and together we strolled round
to the rose-garden--now, alas! naught but black and naked bushes--and down
to the edge of the Loire, yellow and swollen by the recent rains.

"How lovely must be this place in summer," I mused, looking across the
water towards Chambord.  "And, Dame," I cried, suddenly changing my
meditations, "what an ideal fencing ground is this even turf!"

"The swordsman's instinct," laughed Canaples.

And with that our talk shifted to swords, swordsmen, and sword-play, until
I suggested to Andrea that he should resume his practice, whereupon the
Chevalier offered to set a room at our disposal.

"Nay, if you will pardon me, Monsieur, 't is not a room we want," I
answered.  "A room is well enough at the outset, but it is the common error
of fencing-masters to continue their tutoring on a wooden floor.  It
results from this that when the neophyte handles a real sword, and defends
his life upon the turf, the ground has a new feeling; its elasticity or
even its slipperiness discomposes him, and sets him at a disadvantage."

He agreed with me, whilst Andrea expressed a wish to try the turf.  Foils
were brought, and we whiled away best part of an half-hour.  In the end,
the Chevalier, who had watched my play intently, offered to try a bout with
me.  And so amazed was he with the result, that he had not done talking of
it when I left Canaples a few hours later--a homage this that earned me
some more than ordinarily unfriendly glances from Yvonne.  No doubt since
the accomplishment was mine it became in her eyes characteristic of a bully
and a ruffler.

During the week that followed I visited the château with regularity, and
with equal regularity did Andrea receive his fencing lessons.  The object
of his presence at Canaples, however, was being frustrated more and more
each day, so far as the Cardinal and the Chevalier were concerned.

He raved to me of Geneviève, the one perfect woman in all the world and
brought into it by a kind Providence for his own particular delectation. 
In truth, love is like a rabid dog--whom it bites it renders mad; so open
grew his wooing, and so ardent, that one evening I thought well to take him
aside and caution him.

"My dear Andrea," said I, "if you will love Geneviève, you will, and
there's an end of it.  But if you would not have the Chevalier pack you
back to Paris and the anger of my Lord Cardinal, be circumspect, and at
least when M. de Canaples is by divide your homage equally betwixt the two. 
'T were well if you dissembled even a slight preference for Yvonne--she
will not be misled by it, seeing how unmistakable at all other seasons must
be your wooing of Geneviève."

He was forced to avow the wisdom of my counsel, and to be guided by it.

Nevertheless, I rode back to my hostelry in no pleasant frame of mind.  It
was more than likely that a short shrift and a length of hemp would be the
acknowledgment I should anon receive from Mazarin for my participation in
the miscarriage of his desires.

I felt that disaster was on the wing.  Call it a premonition; call it what
you will.  I know but this; that as I rode into the courtyard of the Lys de
France, at dusk, the first man my eyes alighted on was the Marquis César de
St. Auban, and, in conversation with him, six of the most arrant-looking
ruffians that ever came out of Paris.




CHAPTER IX

OF HOW A WHIP PROVED A BETTER ARGUMENT THAN A TONGUE


"I crave Monsieur's pardon, but there is a gentleman below who desires to
speak with you immediately."

"How does this gentleman call himself, M. l'Hote?"

"M. le Marquis de St. Auban," answered the landlord, still standing in the
doorway.

It wanted an hour or so to noon on the day following that of St. Auban's
arrival at Blois, and I was on the point of setting out for the château on
an errand of warning.

It occurred to me to refuse to see the Marquis, but remembering betimes
that from your enemy's speech you may sometimes learn where to look for his
next attack, I thought better of it and bade my host admit him.

I strode over to the fire, and stirring the burning logs, I put my back to
the blaze, and waited.

Steps sounded on the stairs; there was the shuffling of the landlord's
slippered feet and the firm tread of my visitor, accompanied by the jingle
of spurs and the clank of his scabbard as it struck the balustrade.  Then
my door was again opened, and St. Auban, as superbly dressed as ever, was
admitted.

We bowed formally, as men bow who are about to cross swords, and whilst I
waited for him to speak, I noted that his face was pale and bore the
impress of suppressed anger.

"So, M. de Luynes, again we meet."

"By your seeking, M. le Marquis."

"You are not polite."

"You are not opportune."

He smiled dangerously.

"I learn, Monsieur, that you are a daily visitor at the Château de
Canaples."

"Well, sir, what of it?"

"This.  I have been to Canaples this morning and, knowing that you will
learn anon, from that old dotard, what passed between us, I prefer that you
shall hear it first from me."

I bowed to conceal a smile.

"Thanks to you, M. de Luynes, I was ordered from the house.  I--César de
St. Auban--have been ordered from the house of a provincial upstart! 
Thanks to the calumnies which you poured into his ears."

"Calumnies!  Was that the word?"

"I choose the word that suits me best," he answered, and the rage that was
in him at the affront he had suffered at the hands of the Chevalier de
Canaples was fast rising to the surface.  "I warned you at Choisy of what
would befall.  Your opposition and your alliance with M. de Mancini are
futile.  You think to have gained a victory by winning over to your side an
old fool who will sacrifice his honour to see his daughter a duchess, but I
tell you, sir--"

"That you hope to see her a marchioness," I put in calmly.  "You see, M. de
St. Auban, I have learned something since I came to Blois."

He grew livid with passion.

"You shall learn more ere you quit it, you meddler!  You shall be taught to
keep that long nose of yours out of matters that concern you not."

I laughed.

"Loud threats!" I answered jeeringly.

"Never fear," he cried, "there is more to follow.  To your cost shall you
learn it.  By God, sir! do you think that I am to suffer a Sicilian
adventurer and a broken tavern ruffler to interfere with my designs?"

Still I kept my temper.

"So!" I said in a bantering tone.  "You confess that you have designs. 
Good!  But what says the lady, eh?  I am told that she is not yet
outrageously enamoured of you, for all your beauty!"

Beside himself with passion, his hand sought his sword.  But the gesture
was spasmodic.

"Knave!" he snarled.

"Knave to me?  Have a care, St. Auban, or I'll find you a shroud for a
wedding garment."

"Knave!" he repeated with a snarl.  "What price are you paid by that boy?"

"Pardieu, St. Auban!  You shall answer to me for this."

"Answer for it?  To you!"  And he laughed harshly.  "You are mad, my
master.  When did a St. Auban cross swords with a man of your stamp?"

"M. le Marquis," I said, with a calmness that came of a stupendous effort,
"at Choisy you sought my friendship with high-sounding talk of principles
that opposed you to the proposed alliance, twixt the houses of Mancini and
Canaples.  Since then I have learned that your motives were purely
personal.  From my discovery I hold you to be a liar."

"Monsieur!"

"I have not yet done.  You refuse to cross swords with me on the pretext
that you do not fight men of my stamp.  I am no saint, sir, I confess.  But
my sins cannot wash out my name--the name of a family accounted as good as
that of St. Auban, and one from which a Constable of France has sprung,
whereas yours has never yet bred aught but profligates and debauchees.  You
are little better than I am, Marquis; indeed, you do many things that I
would not do, that I have never done.  For instance, whilst refusing to
cross blades with me, who am a soldier and a man of the sword, you seek to
pick a fight with a beardless boy who hardly knows the use of a rapier, and
who--wittingly at least--has done you no wrong.  Now, my master, you may
call me profligate, ruffler, gamester, duellist--what you will; but there
are two viler things you cannot dub me, and which, methinks, I have proven
you to be--liar and craven."

And as I spoke the burning words, I stood close up to him and tapped his
breast as if to drive the epithets into his very heart.

Rage he felt, indeed, and his distorted countenance was a sight fearful to
behold.

"Now, my master," I added, setting my arms akimbo and laughing brutally in
his face, "will you fight?"

For a moment he wavered, and surely meseemed that I had drawn him.  Then:

"No," he cried passionately.  "I will not do dishonour to my sword."  And
turning he made for the door, leaving me baffled.

"Go, sir," I shouted, "but fame shall stalk fast behind you.  Liar and
craven will I dub you throughout the whole of France."

He stopped 'neath the lintel, and faced me again.

"Fool," he sneered.  "You'll need dispatch to spread my fame so far.  By
this time to-morrow you'll be arrested.  In three days you will be in the
Bastille, and there shall you lie until you rot to carrion."

"Loud threats again!" I laughed, hoping by the taunt to learn more.

"Loud perchance, but not empty.  Learn that the Cardinal has knowledge of
your association with Mancini, and means to separate you.  An officer of
the guards is on his way to Blois.  He is at Meung by now.  He bears a
warrant for your arrest and delivery to the governor of the Bastille. 
Thereafter, none may say what will betide."  And with a coarse burst of
laughter he left me, banging the door as he passed out.

For a moment I stood there stricken by his parting words.  He had sought to
wound me, and in this he had succeeded.  But at what cost to himself?  In
his blind rage, the fool had shown me that which he should have zealously
concealed, and what to him was but a stinging threat was to me a timely
warning.  I saw the necessity for immediate action.  Two things must I do;
kill St. Auban first, then fly the Cardinal's warrant as best I could.  I
cast about me for means to carry out the first of these intentions.  My eye
fell upon my riding-whip, lying on a chair close to my hand, and the sight
of it brought me the idea I sought.  Seizing it, I bounded out of the room
and down the stairs, three steps at a stride.

Along the corridor I sped and into the common-room, which at the moment was
tolerably full.  As I entered by one door, the Marquis was within three
paces of the other, leading to the courtyard.

My whip in the air, I sprang after him; and he, hearing the rush of my
onslaught, turned, then uttered a cry of pain as I brought the lash
cares