Æsop waved the suggestion away. "Don't talk like a fool. I expect old
Caylus made her. He was a grim old chip, after my own heart, and our
widow had no friends. Oh yes; I expect daddy Caylus made her marry
Gonzague. What a joke!--what an exquisite joke!"
Peyrolles replied, with attempted dignity: "You didn't travel all the way
from Madrid to talk about my master's marriage, I suppose."
In a moment Æsop's manner became ferocious again. Again he thrust
forward his seamed, malicious face, and again the yellow mask drew back
from it. "You are right, I did not. I came because I am tired of Spain,
because I lust for Paris, because I desire to enter the service of his
Highness Prince Louis de Gonzague, to whom I am about to render a very
great service."
Peyrolles looked at him thoughtfully, the yellow mask wrinkled with
dubiety. "Are you serious about this service?" he asked. "Can you really
perform what your letter seemed to promise?"
"I should not have travelled all this way if I did not know what I was
about," Æsop growled. "I think it matters little if I have lost Lagardere
if I have found the daughter of Nevers."
Peyrolles was thoroughly interested, and leaned eagerly across the table.
"Then you think you have found her?"
Æsop grinned at him maliciously. "As good as found her. I have found a
girl who may be--come, let's put a bold face on it and say must
be--Nevers's daughter. I told you so much in my letter."
Peyrolles now drew back again with a cautious look on his face as he
answered, cautiously: "My master, Prince Gonzague, must be satisfied.
Where is this girl?"
Æsop continued: "Here. I found her in Madrid, the dancing-girl of a band
of gypsies. She is the right age. The girl is clever, she is comely, her
hair is of the Nevers shade, her color of the Nevers tint. She is, by
good-fortune, still chaste, for when I first began to think of this
scheme the minx was little more than a child, and the gypsies, who were
willing to do my bidding, kept her clean for my need. Oh, she has been
well prepared, I promise you! She has been taught to believe that she was
stolen from her parents in her babyhood, and will meet any fable
half-way. She will make a most presentable heiress to the gentleman we
killed at Caylus--"
Peyrolles agitated his yellow hands deprecatingly. He did not like the
revival of unpleasant memories. "My good friend!" he protested.
Æsop eyed him with disdain. "Well, we did kill him, didn't we? You don't
want to pretend that he's alive now, after that jab in the back your
master gave him fifteen years ago?"
Peyrolles wriggled on his chair in an agony of discomfort. "Hush, for
Heaven's sake! Don't talk like that!"