"The best, monsieur. And monsieur wrestled well, too."
"I can't prove that by you, Félix," he retorted, and laughed in my
nettled face. "Well, if you've not trampled on my jewels, I forgive your
contumacy."
If I had, my bare toes had done them no harm. I crawled about the floor,
gathering them all up and putting them on the bed, where I presently sat
down myself to stare at him, trying to realize him for M. le Comte. He
had seated himself, too, and was dusting his trampled wig and clapping
it on again.
He had shaved off his mustaches and the tuft on his chin, and the whole
look of him was changed. A year had gone for every stroke of the razor;
he seemed such a boy, so particularly guileless! He had stained his face
so well that it looked for all the world as though the Southern sun had
done it for him; his eyebrows and, lashes were dark by nature. His wig
came much lower over his forehead than did his own hair, and altered the
upper part of his face as much as the shaving of the lower. Only his
eyes were the same. He had had his back to the window at first, and I
had not noted them; but now that he had turned, his eyes gleamed so
light as to be fairly startling in his dark face--like stars in a stormy
sky.
"Well, then, how do you like me?"
"Monsieur confounds me. It's witchery. I cannot get used to him."
"That's as I would have it," he returned, coming over to the bedside to
arrange his treasures. "For if I look new to you, I think I may look so
to the Hôtel de Lorraine."
"Monsieur goes to the Hôtel de Lorraine as a jeweller?" I cried,
enlightened.
"Aye. And if the ladies do not crowd about me--" he broke off with a
gesture, and put his trays back in his box.
"Well, I wondered, monsieur. I wondered if we were going to sell
ornaments to Peyrot."
He locked the box and proceeded solemnly and thoroughly to damn Peyrot.
He cursed him waking, cursed him sleeping; cursed him eating, cursed him
drinking; cursed him walking, riding, sitting; cursed him summer, cursed
him winter; cursed him young, cursed him old; living, dying, and dead. I
inferred that the packet had not been recovered.
"No, pardieu! Vigo went straight on horseback to the Bonne Femme, but
Peyrot had vanished. So he galloped round to the Rue Tournelles, whither
he had sent two of our men before him, but the bird was flown. He had
been home half an hour before,--he left the inn just after us,--had
paid his arrears of rent, surrendered his key, and taken away his chest,
with all his worldly goods in it, on the shoulders of two porters, bound
for parts unknown. Gilles is scouring Paris for him. Mordieu, I wish him
luck!"
His face betokened little hope of Gilles. We both kept chagrined
silence.
"And we thought him sleeping!" presently cried he.
"Well," he added, rising, "that milk's spilt; no use crying over it.
Plan a better venture; that's the only course. Monsieur is gone back to
St. Denis to report to the king. Marry, he makes as little of these
gates as if he were a tennis-ball and they the net. Time was when he
thought he must plan and prepare, and know the captain of the watch, and
go masked at midnight. He has got bravely over that now; he bounces in
and out as easily as kiss my hand. I pray he may not try it once too
often."
"Mayenne dare not touch him."
"What Mayenne may dare is not good betting. Monsieur thinks he dares
not. Monsieur has come through so many perils of late, he is happily
convinced he bears a charmed life. Félix, do you come with me to the
Hôtel de Lorraine?"
"Ah, monsieur!" I cried, bethinking myself that I had forgotten to
dress.
"Nay, you need not don these clothes," he interposed, with a look of
wickedness which I could not interpret. "Wait; I'm back anon."
He darted out of the room, to return speedily with an armful of apparel,
which he threw on the bed.
"Monsieur," I gasped in horror, "it's woman's gear!"
"Verily."
"Monsieur! you cannot mean me to wear this!"
"I mean it precisely."
"Monsieur!"
"Why, look you, Félix," he laughed, "how else am I to take you? You were
at pains to make yourself conspicuous in M. de Mayenne's salon; they
will recognize you as quickly as me."
"Oh, monsieur, put me in a wig, in cap and bells, an you like! I will be
monsieur's clown, anything, only not this!"
"I never heard of a jeweller accompanied by his clown. Nor have I any
party-colour in my armoires. But since I have exerted myself to borrow
this toggery,--and a fine, big lass is the owner, so I think it will
fit,--you must wear it."
I was like to burst with mortification; I stood there in dumb, agonized
appeal.
"Oh, well, then you need not go at all. If you go, you go as Félicie.
But you may stay at home, if it likes you better."
That settled me. I would have gone in my grave-clothes sooner than not
go at all, and belike he knew it. I began arraying myself sullenly and
clumsily in the murrain petticoats.
There was a full kirtle of gray wool, falling to my ankles, and a white
apron. There was a white blouse with a wide, turned-back collar, and a
scarlet bodice, laced with black cords over a green tongue. I was soon
in such a desperate tangle over these divers garments, so utterly
muddled as to which to put on first, and which side forward, and which
end up, and where and how by the grace of God to fasten them, that M.
Étienne, with roars of laughter, came unsteadily to my aid. He insisted
on stuffing the whole of my jerkin under my blouse to give my figure the
proper curves, and to make me a waist he drew the lacing-cords till I
was like to suffocate. His mirth had by this time got me to laughing so
that every time he pulled me in, a fit of merriment would jerk the laces
from his fingers before he could tie them. This happened once and again,
and the more it happened the more we laughed and the less he could dress
me. I ached in every rib, and the tears were running down his cheeks,
washing little clean channels in the stain.
"Félix, this will never do," he gasped when at length he could speak.
"Never after a carouse have I been so maudlin. Compose yourself, for the
love of Heaven. Think of something serious; think of me! Think of
Peyrot, think of Mayenne, think of Lucas. Think of what will happen to
us now if Mayenne know us for ourselves."
"Enough, monsieur," I said. "I am sobered."
But even now that I held still we could not draw the last holes in the
bodice-point nearly together.
"Nay, monsieur, I can never wear it like this," I panted, when he had
tied it as tight as he could. "I shall die, or I shall burst the seams."
He had perforce to give me more room; he pulled the apron higher to
cover gaps, and fastened a bunch of keys and a pocket at my waist. He
set a brown wig on my head, nearly covered by a black mortier, with its
wide scarf hanging down my back.
"Hang me, but you make a fine, strapping grisette," he cried, proud of
me as if I were a picture, he the painter. "Félix, you've no notion how
handsome you look. Dame! you defrauded the world when you contrived to
be born a boy."
"I thank my stars I was born a boy," I declared. "I wouldn't get into
this toggery for any one else on earth. I tell monsieur that, flat."
"You must change your shoes," he cried eagerly. "Your hobnails spoil
all."