“Messieurs,” he smiled, “an embarras de richesse. Never have I been so greatly honored. I pray that you do not come to blows on my account. One of you might kill the other, which would rob me of the honor of killing you both.”
Captain Cornbury until this time had been an interested and amused onlooker. He dearly loved a fight, and the situation was enjoyable; but here was the evening flying and his game of cards gone a-glimmering.
“Zounds, gentlemen!” he broke in. “A pretty business – to fight at the Fleece Tavern. Pleasant reading for the Courant – a fitting end to a comedy begun upon the street.”
“’Tis not your quarrel, Cornbury,” growled Ferrers.
“Nor yours, Ferrers,” said Heywood, coldly.
“You see, monsieur,” said Mornay to Downey, with mock helplessness, “there is no help for it.”
Cornbury swore a round oath:
“I’ faith, I wash my hands of ye. If fight ye must, quarrel dacently over the cards, man; but do not drag a lady’s name through the streets of London.”
Mornay turned to Cornbury. “It is true, mon ami– it is true.” Then, in a flash, gayly, aloud, almost like a child, he shouted: “Allons, time is flying. To-morrow we shall fight, but to-night – to-night we shall play at quinze. Monsieur Ferraire, you owe me three hundred guineas. We shall play for these. If you win, you will die to-morrow with a clear conscience. If you lose, monsieur, I’ll be your undertaker. Come, maître d’hôtel! – wine!”
CHAPTER II
MISTRESS BARBARA DANCES THE CORANTO
Mistress Barbara’s deep-abiding dislike for Monsieur Mornay began even before the struggle for precedence between the French and Spanish coaches. Such an incident, grown to international importance, might have turned the heads of ladies with greater reputations than hers. Nor should it have been a small thing that a reckless young man had risked his life to say nothing of his honor, in her service, and got a very bad cut upon his head in the bargain. But Mistress Clerke was not like some other ladies of the court. She had heard of the gallantries of Monsieur Mornay, and had set him down as a woman-hunter and libertine – a type especially elected for her abomination. His recent attentions to the Countess of Shrewsbury and the engaging Mrs. Middleton were already the common gossip of the court. She herself had seen this man, perfumed and frilled, flaunting himself in Hyde Park or the Mall with one or the other of his charmers, but the assurance which made him successful elsewhere only filled her with disgust. What the Englishwomen could see in such a fellow it was difficult for her to determine. He was certainly not over-handsome. What strength the face possessed she ascribed to boldness; what pride in the curve of the nose and lips – to arrogance; what sensitiveness and delicacy of molding in lip and chin – to puny aims and habits of fellows of his trade. She was a person who divined rapidly and with more or less inaccuracy, and so she had prepared herself thoroughly to dislike the man, even before his own presumption had heightened her prejudice. Mistress Barbara had first won and now held her position at court, not by a lavish display of her talents and charms, but by a nimble wit and unassailable character and sincerity, qualities of a particular value, because of their rarity. This was the reason she could discover no compliment in the gallantry of Monsieur Mornay on Tower Wharf. For beneath the mask of his subservience she discovered a gleam of unbridled admiration, which, compliment though it might have been from another, from him was only an insult.
Several days of deliberation had brought no change in her spirit. She resolved, as she put the last dainty touches to her toilet, that if Monsieur Mornay again thrust his attentions upon her that night at the ball of the Duchess of Dorset, she would give him a word or two in public which should establish their personal relations for all time. And as she stood before her dressing-table, her mirror gave her back a reflection which justified her every jealous precaution. The candles shimmered upon the loveliest neck and arms in the world. The forehead was wide, white, and smooth, and her hair rippled back from her temples in a shower of gold and fell in a natural order which made the arts of fashion superfluous. Her cheeks glowed with a color which put to shame the rouge-pot in her toilet-closet. She was more like some tall Norse goddess, with the breath of the sea and the pines in her nostrils, than a figure in a world of luxury and pampered ease. Her eyes, clear and full, were strangers to qualms and apprehensions, and the thought of a possible scene with this impertinent Frenchman gave them a sparkle which added to their shadowed luster. In the thinking, she did Monsieur Mornay the honor to add just one more patch to her chin. And then, of course, if trouble arose and the worst came, there was Captain Ferrers, whom she might marry some day, or her guardian, Sir Henry Heywood, who could be called upon. Little did she know of the meeting between Mornay and Sir Henry, arranged for that very morning, which had miscarried because of an untimely intervention by the watch.
The Duke of Dorset danced well. When Mistress Clerke entered his ballroom the tabors were sounding for a brawl. His grace espied her at this moment, and, coming forward with an air of the grand seigneur which many a younger man might have envied him, carried her off under the very noses of Wynne, Howard, Russell, and Jermyn, to say nothing of Captain Ferrers, who had brought her there in his coach.
It was a very merry dance, better suited to young legs than to old, and Mistress Barbara, with a rare grace, put even his grace’s spryness to the test. Monsieur Mornay, who had just come in, made to himself the solemn promise that if it lay in his power she should favor him upon that evening. If he suspected that she would receive him with an ill grace, he did not show it, for he made no scruple to hide his open admiration as she danced along the gallery. Twice she passed the spot where he stood, and once she looked quite through him at the blank wall behind. But, unabashed, when the dance was done he lost no time in letting the Duke of Dorset know that he wished to be presented, in such a manner that recognition would be unavoidable.
“With all the good-will in the world,” said his grace. “Another moth to the flame,” he laughed. “Another star to the constellation. Be careful, Sir Frenchman. ’Tis not a lady pleased with frivolity.”
“Monsieur, behold,” said Mornay, piously, “I am as solemn as a judge – as virtuous as —ma foi! as virtuous as the she-dragon duenna of the Queen.”
“Nor will that please her better,” said Captain Cornbury, who had come up at this moment. “I’ faith, Mornay, she’s most difficult – as full of whims as the multiplication table. At present she spends both her time and her fortune – where d’ye suppose, Monsieur Mornay? In the fire region and the prisons. Strange tastes for the heiress of half a province in France and the whole of the fortune of the Bresacs.”
“Ma foi! Une sérieuse!”
“Ochone! she’s saucy enough – with a bit of a temper, too, they say.”
“But the prisons?”
“Are but her trade to-day – perhaps to-morrow – that’s all. What do ye think? She has but just promised the coranto and an hour alone in the garden to the man who brings her Nick Rawlings’ pardon from the King.”
“The cutpurse?”
“The very same. She says ’tis an old man and ill fit to die upon the scaffold.”
“Pardieu!” said Mornay, casting a swift glance at her train of followers. “She’s more cruel to her lovers than to her poor.”
Cornbury laughed. “I’ faith, so far as she’s concerned, they’re one and the same, I’m thinking. A stroke of janius, Mornay! Have yourself but thrown into prison, and you may win her, after all.”
He moved away. Mornay looked around him for this scornful mistress, but she had gone into the garden with Captain Ferrers.
“Mordieu!” he growled. “There’s truth in that jest. In prison I’ll be, soon enough, unless the King – ” He paused, with a curious smile. “The King – aha! I’ve