"Yes, I have kept watch over him these five weeks. You are late,
François. You little boys are fools; you think because you do not know a
thing I do not know it. Was I cruel to keep my information from you, ma
belle Lorance?"
The attack was absolutely sudden; he had not seemed to observe her.
Mademoiselle coloured and made no instant reply. His voice was neither
loud nor rough; he was smiling upon her.
"Or did you need no information, mademoiselle?"
She met his look unflinching.
"I have not been sighing for tidings of the Comte de Mar, monsieur."
"Because you have had tidings, mademoiselle?"
"No, monsieur, I have had no communication with M. de Mar since
May--until to-night."
"And what has happened to-night?"
"To-night--Paul appeared."
"Paul!" ejaculated the duke, startled momentarily out of his phlegm.
"Paul here?"
"He was, monsieur, an hour ago. He has since gone forth again, I know
not whither or for what."
Mayenne ruminated over this, pulling off his gloves slowly.
"Well? What has this to do with Mar?"
She had no choice, though in evident fear of his displeasure, but to go
through again the tale of the wager and letter. She was moistening her
dry lips as she finished, her eyes on his face wide with apprehension.
But he answered amiably, half absently, as if the whole affair were a
triviality:
"Never mind; I will give you a pair of gloves, Lorance."
He stood smiling upon us as if amused for an idle moment over our
childish games. The colour came back to her cheeks; she made him a
curtsey, laughing lightly.
"Then my grief is indeed cured, monsieur. A new bit of finery is the
best of balms for wounded self-esteem, is it not, Blanche? I confess I
am piqued; I had dared to imagine that my squire might remember me still
after a month of absence. I should have known it too much to ask of
mortal man. Not till the rivers run up-hill will you keep our memories
green for more than a week, messieurs."
"She turns it off well," cried the little demoiselle in blue, Mlle.
Blanche de Tavanne; "you would not guess that she will be awake the
night long, weeping over M. de Mar's defection."
"I!" exclaimed Mlle. de Montluc; "I weep over his recreancy? It is a
far-fetched jest, my Blanche; can you invent no better? The Comte de
Mar--behold him!"
She snatched a card from a tossed-down hand, holding it up aloft for us
all to see. It was by chance the knave of diamonds; the pictured face
with its yellow hair bore, in my fancy at least, a suggestion of M.
Étienne.
"Behold M. de Mar--behold his fate!" With a twinkling of her white
fingers she had torn the luckless knave into a dozen pieces and sent
them whirling over her head to fall far and wide among the company.
[Illustration: "I DO NOT FORGIVE HIS DESPATCHING ME HIS HORSE-BOY."]
"Summary measures, mademoiselle!" quoth a grizzled warrior, with a
laugh. "Mordieu! have we your good permission to deal likewise with the
flesh-and-blood Mar, when we go to arrest him for conspiring against the
Holy League?"
But Mlle. de Tavanne's quick tongue robbed him of his answer.
"Marry, you are severe on him, Lorance. To be sure he does not come
himself, but he sends so gallant a messenger!"
Mademoiselle glanced at me with hard blue eyes.
"That is the greatest insult of all," she said. "I could forgive--and
forget--his absence; but I do not forgive his despatching me his
horse-boy."
Thus far I had choked down my swelling rage at her faithlessness, her
vanity, her despiteful entreatment of my master's plight. I knew it was
sheer madness for me to attempt his defence before this hostile company;
nay, there was no object in defending him; there was not one here who
cared to hear good of him. But at her last insult to him my blood boiled
so hot that I lost all command of myself, and I burst out:
"If I were a horse-boy,--which I am not,--I were twenty times too good
to be carrying messages hither. You need not rail at his poverty,
mademoiselle; it was you brought him to it. It was for you he was turned
out of his father's house. But for you he would not now be lying in a
garret, penniless and dishonoured. Whatever ills he suffers, it is you
and your false house have brought them."
Brie had me by the throat. Mayenne interfered without excitement.
"Don't strangle him, François; I may need him later. Let him be flogged
and locked in the oratory."
He turned away as one bored over a trifling matter. And as the lackeys
dragged me back to the door, I heard Mlle. de Montluc saying:
"Oh, M. de Latour, what have I done in destroying your knave of
diamonds! Ma foi, you had a quatorze!"