– till he could safely thrust his dagger into his enemy's back. But as for his country, he could no more govern it than a puppet worked by strings.

      "And this girl?" said the King, "is she of her father's brood, strong for the religion, and so forth?"

      "She is young and innocent – and very fair!"

      The eyes of the Fool of the Three Henries met those of the Bearnais boldly, and the outlooking black eyes flinched before them.

      "These Scottish maids are not as ours," said the King, perhaps in order to say something, "yet I think she was with her father in my camp, and shared his dangers."

      "To the last she held up his dying head!" said Jean-aux-Choux. And quite unexpectedly to himself, his eyes were moist.

      "And where at this moment is Francis Agnew's daughter?" said the King. Then he added, without apparent connexion, "He was my friend!"

      But his intimates understood the word, and so, though a poor fool, did Jean-aux-Choux. Instinctively he held out his hand, as he would have done to a brother-Scot of his degree.

      The King clasped it heartily, and those who were nearest noticed that his eyes also had a shine in them.

      "What a man!" whispered D'Aubigné to his nearest neighbour. "Sometimes we of the Faith are angry with him, and then, with a pat on the cheek, or a laugh, we are his children again. Or he is ours, I know not which! Guise shakes hands all day long to make his dukeship popular, but in spite of himself his lip curls as if he touched a loathsome thing. Valois presents his hand to be kissed as if it belonged to some one else. But our Bearnais – one would think he never had but one friend in the world, and – "

      "That this Scots fool is the man!"

      "Hush," whispered D'Aubigné, "he is no fool, this fellow. He was of my acquaintance at Geneva. In his youth he knew John Calvin, and learned in the school of Beza. The King does well to attach him! Listen!"

      Jean-aux-Choux was certainly giving the King his money's-worth. Henry was pacing up and down, his fingers busily and unconsciously arranging his beard.

      "I have not enough men to take him prisoner," he said; "this ex-mignon D'Epernon is a slippery fish. He will deal with me, and with another. But if he could sell my head to my Lord of Guise and these furious wool-staplers of Paris, he would think it better worth his while than the off-chance of the Bearnais coming out on top!"

      He pondered a while, with the deep niche of thought running downward from mid-brow to the bridge of his nose, which they called "the King's council of war."

      "The girl is to be left in Blois," he muttered, as if to sum up the situation, "with this Professor of the Sorbonne – an old man, I suppose, and a priest. Very proper, very proper! My cousin, John Jackanapes, the young ex-Leaguer, goes to Court. They will make a Politique of him, a Valois-divine-right man – good again, for after this Valois-by-right-divine (save the mark!) comes not Master John d'Albret, but – the Bearnais! Yet – I do not know – perhaps, after all, he had better come with me. Then I shall hold one hostage the more! Let me see – let me see!"