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