Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "God save your
majesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enter
Paris in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, when
he suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To his
surprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the king
was retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.
Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him?
Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him?
He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at the
side of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing the
bridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay's return had nothing
whatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn of
the Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursue
a pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something of
the pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, a
pastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king's assurance
that he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.
So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the
bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much
enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly,
and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble
from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above
the Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling mischievously, under the doorway
of the Inn, and waited upon events. In a moment the window was opened,
and Gabrielle looked out. "Is that you, Henri?" she asked, softly.
Instantly Chavernay emerged from his hiding-place, and stood bareheaded
and bending almost double before the beautiful girl. "It was I," he said,
with a manner of airy deference.
Gabrielle drew back a little. "You? Who are you?" she asked, astonished.
Chavernay again made her a reverence. "Your slave," he asserted.
Gabrielle remembered him now, and looked annoyed. "Sir!" she said,
angrily.
Chavernay saw her anger, but was not dismayed. He was familiar with the
feigned rages of pretty country girls when it pleased great lords to make
love to them. "Listen to me," he pleaded. "Ever since I first saw you I
have adored you."
He meant to say more, but he was not given the time in which to say it,
for Lagardere came forth from his shelter beside the caravan and
interrupted him. At the sight of Lagardere, Gabrielle gave a little cry
and closed the window. Lagardere advanced to Chavernay, who stared in
astonishment at the presumption of the gypsy fellow--a gypsy fellow that
carried a sword under his mantle.
"That young girl is under my care, little gentleman," Lagardere said,
mockingly.
But Chavernay was not easily to be dashed from his habitual manner of
genial insolence, and he answered, as mockingly as Lagardere: "Then I
tell you what I told her: that I adore her."
Lagardere eyed him whimsically, grimly. He felt disagreeably conscious of
the contrast between himself in his shabby habit and the gilded frippery
of this brilliant young insolence. He speculated with melancholy as to
the effect of this contrast on the young girl that witnessed it. "You
imp, you deserve to be whipped!" he said, sharply.
Chavernay stared at him with eyes wide with astonishment, and explained
himself, haughtily: "I am the Marquis de Chavernay, cousin of the Prince
de Gonzague."
Lagardere changed his phrase: "Then you come of a bad house, and deserve
to be hanged!"
In a second the little marquis dropped his daffing manner. "If you were a
gentleman, sir," he cried, "and had a right to the sword you presume to
carry, I would make you back your words!"
Lagardere smiled ironically. "If it eases your mind in any way," he said,
quietly, "I can assure you that I am a gentleman, although a poor one,
and have as good right to trail a sword as any kinsman of the Prince de
Gonzague." He paused, and then added, not unpityingly: "I would rather
beat you than kill you."
Chavernay was scarcely to be appeased in this fashion. Something in
Lagardere's carriage, something in his voice, convinced the little
marquis that his enemy was speaking the truth, and that he was, indeed, a
gentleman. "Braggart!" he cried, and, drawing his sword, he struck
Lagardere across the breast with the flat of his blade.
Lagardere was quite unmoved by the affront. Leisurely he drew his sword
and leisurely fell into position, saying, "Very well, then."
The swords engaged for a moment--only for a moment. Then, to the surprise
and rage of Chavernay, his hand and his sword parted company, and the
sword, a glittering line of steel, leaped into the air and fell to earth
many feet away from him. Even as this happened, Gabrielle, who had been
watching with horror the quarrel from behind her curtains, came running
down the Inn stairs and darted through the door into the open.
She turned to Lagardere, appealing: "Do not hurt him, Henri; he is but a
child."
The little marquis frowned. He disliked to be regarded as a pitiable
juvenile. "If the gentleman will return me my sword," he said, "I will
not lose it again so lightly."
Lagardere looked at him with kind-hearted compassion. "If I returned you
your sword twenty times," he said, "its fate would be twenty times the
same. Take your sword and use it hereafter to defend women, not to insult
them."
While he was speaking he had stepped to where Chavernay's blade lay on
the sward, and had picked it up, and now, as he made an end of speaking,
he handed Chavernay the rapier. Chavernay took it, and sent it home in
its sheath half defiantly. "Fair lady, I ask your pardon," he said,
bowing very reverentially to Gabrielle. "Let me call myself ever your
servant." He turned and gave Lagardere a salutation that was more hostile
than amiable, and then recrossed the bridge in his airiest manner as one
that is a lord of fortune. Lagardere stood silent, almost gloomy, looking
at the ground. Gabrielle regarded him for a moment timidly, and then,
advancing, softly placed a hand upon his shoulder.
"You are not angry with me?" she whispered.
Lagardere turned to her and forced himself to smile cheerfully.
"Angry--with you? How could that be possible?" He was silent for a
moment, then he asked: "Do you know that gentleman?"
Gabrielle shook her head. "I saw him for the first time to-day, not very
long ago, when I was speaking to Flora. I had come out for a moment when
she called to me, and he came over the bridge and took us unawares."
Lagardere looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?"
he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might well
win a girl's heart."
Gabrielle returned Lagardere's earnest look with a look of surprise. "He
is a noble. I am a poor girl."
Lagardere smiled wistfully. "How if you were no longer to be a poor girl,
Gabrielle? How if this visit to Paris were to change our fortunes?"
Gabrielle looked at him curiously. "Why have we come to Paris, Henri? I
thought there was danger in Paris?"
"There was danger in Paris," Lagardere said, slowly--"grave danger. But I
have seen a great man, and the danger has vanished, and you and I are
coming to the end of our pilgrimage."
"The end of our pilgrimage?" echoed Gabrielle. "What is going to happen
to us?"
"Wonderful things," Lagardere said, lightly--"beautiful things. You shall
know all about them soon enough." To himself he whispered: "Too soon for
me." Then he addressed the girl again, blithely: "When I took you to
Madrid you saw the color of the court, you heard the music of festivals.
Did you not feel that you were made for such a life?"
Gabrielle answered instantly: "Yes, for that life--or any life--with
you."