The hunchback came a little nearer to him and spoke, eagerly: "No time
like the present, highness. I thought that on this night of triumph for
you I could provide for you and your friends such an entertainment as no
other man in all Paris could command. I have ventured to summon your
notary. Let your supper be my wedding-feast, your guests my witnesses.
Bring the girl and I will win her. I am sure of it--sure."
Gonzague was too well-bred, too scholarly a man not to have a well-bred,
scholarly sense of humor. His nimble Italian fancy saw at once the
contrasts between his noisy company of light men and loose women and the
withered hunchback who was a murderer and the beautiful girl whom he had
robbed of her birthright and was now ready to rob of her honor. "It will
be a good jest," he murmured.
The hunchback indorsed his words: "The best jest in the world. You will
laugh and laugh and laugh to watch the hunchback's courtship."
Gonzague turned again towards the doors. "I must rejoin my guests," he
said; "but you look something glum and dull for a suitor. You should have
fine clothes, fellow; they will stimulate your tongue when you come to
the wooing. Go to my steward for a wedding-garment. Your bride will be
here when you return."
The hunchback's bowed head came nearer still to earth in his profound
inclination. "You overwhelm me with kindness."
Gonzague paused, with his hand on the door, to look at him again. "You
kill Lagardere; you marry Gabrielle. Do I owe you most as bravo or
bridegroom?"
Again the hunchback abased himself. "Your highness shall decide
by-and-by." Then he turned and went out through the antechamber and left
Gonzague alone.
Gonzague rubbed his hands. "Æsop is my good genius." Then he touched a
bell and a servant entered, to whom he gave instructions. "Tell Madame
Berthe to come with the girl who was placed in her charge to-night."
The servant bowed and disappeared. Gonzague went to the golden doors and
threw them open. Standing in the aperture, he summoned his friends to
join him. Instantly there was a great noise of rising revellers, of
chairs set back, of glasses set down, of fans caught up, of fluttered
skirts and lifted rapiers. Men and women, the guests of Gonzague, flooded
from the supper-room into the great hall, and under the gaze of the Three
Louis, Oriol with his fancy, Navailles with Cidalise, Taranne, Nocé, and
the others, each with his raddled Egeria of the opera-house and the
ballet. As they fluttered and flirted and laughed and chattered into the
great hall, Gonzague held up his hand for a moment, as one that calls for
silence, and in a moment the revellers were silent.