This time Flora had evidently made up her mind that it would be indiscreet of her further to prolong the colloquy. She dipped him a courtesy, half mocking and half respectful, wished him good-day, and, diving into the caravan, slammed the door in his face. The little marquis seemed at first astonished at the austerity of the gypsy girl.

"Dido retires to her cave," he thought to himself. "Shall AEneas pursue?" He made for a moment as if to advance and force his company upon the seeming reluctant damsel. Then his volatile thoughts flickered back to the girl who had entered the Inn. "Methinks," he reflected, "I would as soon play Paris to yonder Helen. But I must not keep his Majesty waiting. No wonder he seeks the Inn of the Three Graces." For it was plain to the little gentleman that he had now discovered the reason why his august master and sovereign had done him the honor to select him as scout to find out the whereabouts of the unknown tavern.



XIV

"I AM HERE!"

Pleased at the success of his mission, although disappointed at not having made further progress in the graces of the two girls whom he was pleased to regard as shepherdesses, he cast his eye first to the shut door of the caravan and then to the silent face of the tavern, and was about to rejoin his illustrious master with all speed when his attention was arrested by a singular figure advancing towards him from the Paris road. This person was tall and thin and bony, with a weakly amiable face fringed with flaxen hair, and timid eyes that blinked under pink eyelids. He was dressed in black clothes of an extreme shabbiness, and the only distinguishing feature of his appearance was a particularly long and formidable sword that flapped against his calves. The fellow was at once so fantastic and so ridiculous that Chavernay, whose sense of humor was always lively, regarded him with much curiosity and at the same time with affected dismay.

"Is this ogre," he wondered to himself, "one of the protecting giants who guard the fair nymphs of this place, or is he rather some cruel guardian appointed by the enchanter, who denies them intercourse with agreeable mankind?" Thus Chavernay mused, affecting the fancies of some fashionable romance; and then, finding that his attentions appeared strangely to embarrass the angular individual in black, he turned on his heels to make for the bridge, and again came to a halt, for on the bridge appeared another figure as grotesque as the first-comer, but grotesque in a wholly different manner.

This second stranger was as burly as the first was lean, and as gaudy in his apparel as the first was simple. The petals of the iris, the plumes of the peacock seemed to have been pillaged by him for the colors that made up his variegated wardrobe. A purple pourpoint, crimson breeches, an amber-colored cloak, and a huge hat with a blue feather set off a figure of extravagantly martial presence. Where the face of the first-comer was pale, insignificant, and timid, that of the second-comer was ruddy, assertive, and bold. The only point in common with his predecessor was that he, too, swung at his side a monstrous rapier. The sight of this whimsical stranger was too much for Chavernay's self-restraint, and he burst into a hearty fit of laughter, which he made no effort to control.

"What a scarecrow!" he muttered, looking back at the individual in black. "What a gorgon!" he continued, as his eyes travelled to the man in motley. "Gog and Magog, by Heavens!" he commented, as he surveyed the astonishing pair.

Then, still laughing, he ran across the bridge and left the two objects of his mirth glaring after him in indignation. Indeed, so indignant were they, and so steadily did they keep their angry eyes fixed upon the retreating figure of the marquis, while each continued his original course of progression, that the two men, heedless of each other, ran into each other with an awkward thump that recalled to each of them the fact that there were other persons in the world as well as an impertinent gentleman with nimble heels. The man in black and the man in many colors each clapped a hand to a sword-hilt, only to withdraw it instantly and extend it in sign of amicable greeting.

"Passepoil!" cried the man in many colors.

"Cocardasse!" cried the man in black.

"To my arms, brother, to my arms!" cried Cocardasse, and in a moment the amazing pair were clasped in each other's embrace.

"Is it really you?" said Cocardasse, when he thought the embrace had lasted long enough, holding Passepoil firmly by the shoulders and gazing fixedly into his pale, pathetic face.

Passepoil nodded. "Truly. What red star guides you to Paris?"

Cocardasse dropped his voice to a whisper. "I had a letter."

Passepoil whispered in reply: "So had I."

Cocardasse amplified: "My letter told me to be outside the Inn of the Three Graces, near Neuilly, on a certain day—this day—to serve the Prince of Gonzague."

Passepoil nodded again. "So did mine."

Cocardasse continued: "Mine enclosed a draft on the Bank of Marseilles to pay expenses."

Passepoil noted a point of difference: "Mine was on the Bank of Calais."

"I suppose Gonzague wants all that are left of us," Cocardasse said, thoughtfully.

Passepoil sighed significantly. "There aren't many."

Cocardasse looked as gloomy as was possible for one of his rubicund countenance and jolly bearing. "Lagardere has kept his word."

"Staupitz was killed at Seville," Passepoil murmured, as one who begins a catalogue of disasters.

Cocardasse continued: "Faenza was killed at Burgos."

Passepoil went on: "Saldagno at Toledo."

Cocardasse took up the tale: "Pinto at Valladolid."

Passepoil concluded the catalogue: "Joel at Grenada, Pepe at Cordova."

"All with the same wound," Cocardasse commented, with a curious solemnity in his habitually jovial voice.

Passepoil added, lugubriously: "The thrust between the eyes."

Cocardasse summed up, significantly: "The thrust of Nevers."

The pair were silent for an instant, looking at each other with something like dismay upon their faces, and their minds were evidently busy with old days and old dangers.

Passepoil broke the silence. "They didn't make much by their blood-money."

"Yes," said Cocardasse; "but we, who refused to hunt Lagardere, we are alive."

Passepoil cast a melancholy glance over his own dingy habiliments and then over the garments of Cocardasse, garments which, although glowing enough in color, were over-darned and over-patched to suggest opulence. "In a manner," he said, dryly.

Cocardasse drew himself up proudly and slapped his chest. "Poor but honest."

Passepoil allowed a faint smile, expressive of satisfaction, to steal over his melancholy countenance. "Thank Heaven, in Paris we can't meet Lagardere."

Cocardasse appeared plainly to share the pleasure of his old friend. "An exile dare not return," he said, emphatically, with the air of a man who feels sure of himself and of his words. But it is the way of destiny very often, even when a man is surest of himself and surest of his words, to interpose some disturbing factor in his confident calculations, to make some unexpected move upon the chess-board of existence, which altogether baffles his plans and ruins his hopes. So many people had crossed the bridge that morning that it really seemed little less than probable that the appearance of a fresh pedestrian upon its arch could have any serious effect upon the satisfactory reflections of the two bravos. Yet at that moment a man did appear upon the bridge, who paused and surveyed Cocardasse and Passepoil, whose backs were towards him, with a significant smile.

The new-comer was humbly clad, very much in the fashion of one of those gypsies who had pitched their camp so close to the wayside tavern; but if the man's clothes were something of the gypsy habit, he carried a sword under his ragged mantle, and it was plain from the man's face that he was not a gypsy. His handsome, daring, humorous face, bronzed by many suns and lined a little by many experiences—a face that in its working mobility and calm inscrutability might possibly have been the countenance of a strolling player—was the face of a man still in the prime of life, and carrying his years as lightly as if he were still little more than a lad. He moved noiselessly from the bridge to the high-road, and came cautiously upon the swashbucklers at the very moment when Passepoil was saying, with a shiver: "I'm always afraid to hear Lagardere's voice cry out Nevers's motto."

Even on the instant the man in the gypsy habit pushed his way between the two bandits, laying a hand on each of their shoulders and saying three words: "I am here!"

Cocardasse and Passepoil fell apart, each with the same cry in the same amazed voice.

"Lagardere!" said Cocardasse, and his ruddy face paled.

"Lagardere!" said Passepoil, and his pale face flushed.

As for Lagardere, he laughed heartily at their confusion. "You are like scared children whose nurse hears bogey in the chimney."

Cocardasse strove to seem amused. "Children!" he said, with a forced laugh, and it was with a forced laugh that Passepoil repeated the word "Bogey."

For a moment the good-humor faded from the face of Lagardere, and he spoke grimly enough: "There were nine assassins in the moat at Caylus. How many are left now?"

"Only three," Cocardasse answered.

Passepoil was more precise. "Cocardasse and myself and AEsop."

Lagardere looked at them mockingly. "Doesn't it strike you that AEsop will soon be alone?"

Cocardasse shuddered. "It's no laughing matter."

Lagardere still continued to smile. "Vengeance sometimes wears a sprightly face and smiles while she strikes."

Passepoil was now a sickly green. "A very painful humor," he stammered.

There was an awkward pause, and then Cocardasse suddenly spoke in a decisive tone. "Captain, you have no right to kill us," he growled, and Passepoil, nodding his long head, repeated his companion's phrase with Norman emphasis.

Lagardere looked from one to the other of the pair, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that reassured them. "Are you scared, old knaves? No explanations; let me speak. That night in Caylus, seventeen years ago, when the darkness quivered with swords, I did not meet your blades."

Cocardasse explained. "When you backed Nevers we took no part in the scuffle."

"Nor did we join in hunting you later," Passepoil added, hurriedly.

Lagardere's face wore a look of satisfaction. "In all the tumult of that tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart—thought they might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you."

"Sent for us?" Cocardasse echoed in astonishment.

"Was it you who—" Passepoil questioned, equally surprised.

"Why, of course it was," Lagardere answered. "Sit down and listen."

He led the way to the very table at which, such a short time before, AEsop had sat with Peyrolles. Now he and Cocardasse and Passepoil seated themselves, the two bravos side by side and still seemingly not a little perturbed, Lagardere opposite to them and studying them closely, resting his chin upon his hands.

"Ever since that night I have lived in Spain, hunted for a while by Gonzague's gang, until, gradually, Gonzague's gang ceased to exist."

"The thrust of Nevers," Cocardasse commented, quietly.

Lagardere smiled sadly. "Exactly. I had only one purpose in life—to avenge Nevers and to protect Nevers's child. I abandoned my captaincy of irregulars when the late cardinal quarrelled with Spain. I did not like the late cardinal, but he was a Frenchman, and so was I. Since then I have lived as best I could, from hand to mouth, but always the child was safe, always the child was cared for, always the child was in some obscure hands that were kind and mild. Well, the child grew up, the beautiful child dawned into a beautiful girl, and still I kept her to myself, for I knew it was not safe to let Gonzague know that she lived. But the girl is a woman now; she is the age to inherit the territories of Nevers. The law will shield her from the treason of Gonzague. The king will protect the daughter of his friend."

The Norman shook his head, and the expression of his face was very dubious. "Gonzague is a powerful personage."

Cocardasse did not appear to be so much impressed by the power of Gonzague, but then it must be remembered that he came from Marseilles, while Passepoil arrived from Calais, which is more impressed by Paris. What the Gascon wanted to know was how his old friend and one-time enemy had contrived to appear so opportunely.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

Lagardere explained. "There was a gypsy lass in Madrid of whom by chance Gabrielle had made a friend. Poor girl, she could not have many friends. One day this girl told us that she and her tribe were going to Paris on some secret business of their own. Here was an opportunity for the exiles to return, unseen, to France. As gypsies, we travelled with the gypsies. I have been a strolling player, and as a strolling player I helped to pay my way. Before we left Madrid I wrote you those letters. As a result of all this delicate diplomacy, here I am, and here you are."

Cocardasse still was puzzled. "But our letters spoke of the service of Gonzague?"

Lagardere laughed as he answered the riddle. "Because, dear dullards, I want you to enter the service of Gonzague. If I return to France to right a wrong, I know the risk I run and the blessing of you two devils to help me."

Each of the two bravos extended his right hand. "Any help we can give," protested Cocardasse—"is yours," added Passepoil.

Lagardere clasped the extended hands confidently. "I take you at your words. Gonzague is at the fair yonder in attendance upon the king. You may get a chance to approach him. He can hardly refuse you his favor."

"Hardly," said Cocardasse, grimly, and—"hardly," echoed Passepoil, with a wry smile.

Lagardere rose to his feet. "Go now. I shall find means to let you know of my whereabouts and my purposes later. Till then—"

"Devotion!" cried Cocardasse.

"Discretion!" cried Passepoil, and each of the men saluted Lagardere with a military salute. Then the two bravos, linking arms, crossed the bridge together and made for the fair, conversing as they went of the wonderful chance that had brought Lagardere back to Paris and their own good-fortune in having been able to prove themselves innocent of complicity in the murder of Nevers.

When they were gone, Lagardere walked slowly up and down beneath the trees, reflecting deeply. He had gained one point in the desperate game he had set himself to play. He had found two adherents upon whose hands, whose hearts, and whose swords he could count with confidence, and he felt that he had succeeded, in a measure, in planting adherents of his own in the enemy's camp. But he had another point in his desperate game to win that morning. He had written a letter, he had requested a favor, he had made an appointment. Immediately on arriving in the neighborhood of Paris he had caused a letter to be despatched to the king's majesty—not to the king direct, indeed, but to the king's private secretary, whom Lagardere knew by repute to be an honorable and loyal gentleman, who could be, as he believed, relied upon, if he credited the letter, to keep it as a secret between himself and his royal master. It was a bold hazard, although the letter was weighted with the talisman of a name that must needs recall an ancient friendship. Would that letter be answered? Would that favor be granted? Would that appointment be kept?

For some time Lagardere paced the grass thoughtfully; for some time—perhaps for a quarter of an hour—his solitude was undisturbed. At the end of that time he emerged from the shadow of the trees, and, standing at the foot of the bridge, surveyed the road that led to Neuilly. What he saw upon the road seemed to give him the greatest satisfaction. Three gentlemen were walking together in the direction of the Inn. One was a very dandy-like young gentleman, very foppishly habited, who seemed to skip through existence upon twinkling heels. Another was a stiff, soldierly looking man of more than middle age, whom Lagardere knew to be Captain Bonnivet, of the Royal Guards. The third, who was the first of the group, was a man who, though still in the early prime of life, looked as if he were fretted with the cares of many more years than were his lot. He was a slender personage, with a long, pale face. He was clad entirely in black, in emphasis of a mourning mind, and as he walked he coughed from time to time, and shivered and looked about him wistfully. But at the same time he seemed to affect a gay manner with his companions, as one that aired a determination to be entertained. It was seventeen years since Lagardere had seen the king, and he was saddened at the change that the years had made in him. He could only pray that those changing years had wrought no alteration in the affection of Louis of France for Louis of Nevers.



XV

THE KING'S WORD

In a moment Lagardere enveloped himself in his gypsy's cloak and flung himself on one of the benches of the Inn, where he lay as if wrapped in the heavy sleep which is the privilege of those that live in the open air and follow the stars with their feet. When the king, accompanied by Chavernay and followed by Bonnivet, crossed the bridge and paused before the Inn, nothing was to be noticed save the huddle of gray cloth which represented some tired wayfarer.

Louis of France looked about him curiously. "Is this the Inn of the Three Graces?" he asked.

He even allowed himself to laugh a small laugh.

The Marquis of Chavernay smiled a faint smile. "Yes, your majesty, and since I have been privileged to behold two of its three attendant graces in the flesh, and found them most commendable girls and goddesses, I think, without indiscretion, I could hazard a guess as to your reason for this visit."

The king looked at his impudent companion with the complaisant good-humor which, since his much-talked-of bereavement, he was prepared to extend to those most fortunate among his courtiers who could succeed in diverting his melancholy. He was familiar with Chavernay's impertinences, for Chavernay had soon discovered that the witticisms which would have gained the frown of the cardinal earned the smiles of the king. "Truly," he said—"truly, I do come for an assignation, but it is with no woman. You boys think of nothing in the world but women."

Chavernay made the king a most sweeping reverence. "Your majesty would, if your majesty deigned to condescend so far, prove the most fatal rival of your most amorous subject."

Since the death of the cardinal, Louis liked it to be hinted that he was still the man of gallantry, irresistible when he pleased. So he smiled as he caught Chavernay's ear and pinched it. "Imp, do you think you lads are the only gallants, and that we old soldiers must give way to you?"

Chavernay saluted him again. "You are our general, your majesty—we win our battles in your name."

Louis laughed and then looked grave, smiled again and then sighed. "My dear Chavernay, when you are my age you will think that one pretty woman is very like another pretty woman. But there is no pretty woman in this case."

Chavernay made a still more ironical bow. "Your majesty!" he said, with an air that implied: "Of course I must appear to believe you, but in reality I do not believe you at all." Chavernay was thinking to himself of the adorable creatures whom he had seen disappear within the walls of the Inn and the walls of the caravan, and he drew his conclusions accordingly, and drew them wrong. When the king answered him, he answered, gravely, as one who objects to have his word questioned even by a frivolous spirit like Chavernay.

"I come here," he said, "in reply to a letter I received two days ago—a letter which appeals to me by a name which compels me to consider the appeal. That is why I come here to-day. My correspondent makes it a condition that I come alone. Take Bonnivet with you. Keep within call, but out of sight."

Chavernay bowed very respectfully this time. The newest friends of Louis of France knew that they best pleased him by appearing to presume on his good-nature, but even the lightest and liveliest of them felt that there was a point beyond which he must not venture to presume. Chavernay felt instinctively that he had reached that point now, and his manner was a pattern to presentable courtiers.

"Yes, your majesty," he said, and turned to Bonnivet, and Bonnivet and he went over the bridge and out of sight among a little clump of trees on the roadside. From here they could see the king plainly enough, and hear him if he chose to raise his voice loud enough to call them, but here they were out of ear-shot of any private conversation. That their presence in the neighborhood was scarcely necessary they were both well aware, for there were few conspiracies against the king's authority and no plots against the king's life, and if Louis of France had chosen to go unattended his pompous, melancholy person would have been in no danger.

Louis walked slowly to the little table in the arbor, and, seating himself, took out a letter from his pocket and read it thoughtfully over. Then he drew a watch looped in diamonds from his pocket and looked at the hour. As he did so the huddled, seeming sleeping figure on the bench stiffened itself, sat up erect, and cast off its cloak.

Lagardere rose and advanced towards the king. "I am here," he said, in a firm, respectful voice.

Louis turned round and looked with curiosity but without apprehension at the man who addressed him, the man who was dressed like a gypsy, but who clearly was no gypsy. "Are you the writer of this letter?" he asked.

Lagardere saluted him with a graceful reverence. "Yes, your Majesty. I know that you are the King of France."

Louis slightly inclined his head. "I could not refuse a summons that promised to tell me of Louis de Nevers. Are you Lagardere?"

Lagardere made a gesture as of protest. "I am his ambassador. Have I the privilege of an ambassador?"

The king frowned slightly. "What privilege?"

"Immunity if my mission displeases you," Lagardere answered.

The king looked steadily at the seeming gypsy, who returned his glance as steadily. "You are bold, sir," he said.

Lagardere answered him, with composure. "I am bold because I address Louis of France, who never broke his word—Louis of France, who still holds dear the memory of Louis of Nevers."

The king signed to him to continue. "Speak freely. What do you know of Louis of Nevers?"

Lagardere went on: "Lagardere knows much. He knows who killed Nevers. He knows where Nevers's child is. He can produce the child. He can denounce the murderer."

"When?" asked the king, eagerly.

"To-morrow," Lagardere answered. Then he hastened to add: "But he makes his conditions."

Louis frowned as Lagardere mentioned the word "conditions," and asked: "What reward does he want?"

Lagardere smiled at the question. "You do not know Lagardere. He asks for a safe-conduct for himself."

The king agreed. "He shall have it."

But Lagardere had more to ask. "He also wants four invitations for the ball your majesty gives at the Palais Royal to-morrow night."

Perhaps Lagardere showed himself something of a courtier in this speech. The great Richelieu had bequeathed to the little Louis his splendid dwelling-house, and Louis was indeed giving a stately entertainment there, avowedly in order to do honor to the memory of him who had made so munificent a gift, but in reality to prove to himself that he was master where he had been slave, and that he could, if he pleased, amuse himself to his heart's content in the house that had been the dwelling of his tyrant. What Louis, always dissimulative, feigned to be an act of gracious homage to dead generosity was in truth an act of defiant and safe self-assertion. Perhaps Lagardere guessed as much. Certainly he played agreeably upon the king's susceptibilities when he gave to Richelieu's bequest the name of Palais Royal, which was still quite unfamiliar, instead of the name of Palais Cardinal, which it had worn so long and by which name almost every one still called it. Certainly the king's pale cheeks reddened with satisfaction at the phrase; it assured him soothingly of what he was pleased to consider his triumph. But he allowed a slight expression of surprise to mingle with his air of complacency, and Lagardere hastened to give the reason for what was on the face of it a sufficiently strange request.

"There, before the flower of the nobility of France, Lagardere will denounce Nevers's assassin and produce Nevers's child."

The king agreed again. "He shall have his wish. Where shall the invitations be sent?"

Lagardere bowed low in acknowledgment of the promise. "Sire," he said, "an emissary from Lagardere will wait upon your secretary to-morrow morning He will say that he has come for four invitations promised by your majesty for to-morrow night, and he will back his demand with the password 'Nevers.'"

The king bowed his head. "It shall be done as you wish," he answered. "Is there anything more?" he asked, and Lagardere replied: "This much more: that your majesty speak nothing of this to any one till midnight to-morrow."

The king agreed a third time. "Lagardere has my word."

"Then," said Lagardere, "Lagardere will keep his word."

Louis rose to his feet, and signed that the interview was ended. "If he does, I am his friend for life. But if he fail, let him never enter France again, for on my word as a gentleman I will have his head."

He saluted Lagardere slightly, and turned and crossed the bridge. A few paces beyond it he was joined by Chavernay and Bonnivet. The three stood together for a few moments; then the king and Bonnivet continued their journey towards Neuilly, leaving Chavernay behind them, lingering in the shade of the trees.



XVI

SHADOWS

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."

Lagardere protested: "Ah, but without me."

Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."

Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you saw had palaces, had noble kinsfolk, had mothers—"

Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only treasure I envy them," she said, firmly.

Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and me?"

For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressing effect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you." Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily: "Henri, you are the first in the world for me."

Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graver rivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother's love."

"What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.

Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl's love for a boy, a maid's love for a man. That pretty gentleman who was here but now, and swore he adored you—if you were noble, could you love such a man as he?"

Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instants had been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "I swear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love would not be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."

In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something, at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed to laugh, too.

"What would he be like," he asked—"the wonder whom you would consent to love?"

He spoke very merrily, but it racked his heart to speak thus lightly of the love of Gabrielle. He wished that he were a little boy again, that he might hide behind some tree and cry out his grief in bitter tears. But being, as he reminded himself, a weather-beaten soldier of fortune, it was his duty to screen his misery with a grin and to salute his doom with amusement. As for Gabrielle, she came a little nearer to Lagardere, and her eyes were shining very brightly, and her lips trembled a little, and she seemed a little pale in the clear air.

"I will try to paint you a picture," she said, hesitatingly, "of the man I"—she paused for a second, and then continued, hurriedly—"of the man I could love. He would be about your height, as I should think, to the very littlest of an inch; and he would be built as you are built, Henri; and his hair would be of your color, and his eyes would have your fire; and his voice would have the sound of your voice, the sweetest sound in the world; and the sweetest sound of that most sweet voice would be when it whispered to me that it loved me."

Lagardere looked at her with haggard, happy eyes. He could not misunderstand, and he was happy; he dared not understand, and he was sad.

"Gabrielle," he said, softly, "when you were a little maid I used to tell you tales to entertain you. Will you let me spin you a fable now?"

The girl said nothing; only she nodded, and she looked at him very fixedly. Lagardere went on:

"There was once a man, a soldier of fortune, an adventurous rogue, into whose hands a jesting destiny confided a great trust. That trust was the life of a child, of a girl, of a woman, whom it was his glory to defend for a while with his sword against many enemies."

"I think he defended her very well," Gabrielle interrupted, gently. Lagardere held up a warning finger.

"Hush," he said. "What I am speaking of took place ages ago, when the world was ever so much younger, in the days of Charlemagne and Caesar and Achilles and other great princes long since withered, so you can know nothing at all about it. But this rogue of my story had a sacred duty to fulfil. He had to restore to this charge, this ward of his, the name, the greatness, that had been stolen from her. It was his mission to give her back the gifts which had been filched from her by treason. For seventeen years he had lived for this purpose, and only for this purpose, crushing all other thoughts, all other hopes, all other dreams. What would you say of such a man, so sternly dedicated to so great a faith, if he were to prove false to his trust, and to allow his own mad passion to blind him to the light of loyalty, to deafen him to the call of honor?"

He was looking away from her as he spoke, but the girl came close to him and caught his hands, and made him turn his face to her, and each saw that the other's eyes were wet. Gabrielle spoke steadily, eagerly:

"You say that what you speak of happened very long ago. But we are to-day as those were yesterday, and if I were the maid of your tale I would say to the man that love is the best thing a true man can give to a true woman, and that a woman who wore my body could lose no wealth, no kingdom, to compare with the rich treasure of her lover's heart."

There was no mistaking the meaning of the girl, the meaning ringing in her words, shining in her eyes, appealing in her out-stretched arms. To Lagardere it seemed as if the kingdom of the world were offered to him. He had but to keep silence, and his heart's desire was his. But he remembered the night in the moat of Caylus, he remembered the purpose of long years, he remembered his duty, he remembered his honor, and he grappled with the dragon of passion, with the dragon of desire. Very calmly he touched for a moment, with caressing hand, the hair of Gabrielle. Very quietly he spoke.

"We are taking my fairy tale too gravely," he said. "It all happened long ago, and has nothing to do with us. Our story is very different, and our story is coming to a wonderful conclusion. This day is your last day of doubt and ignorance, of solitude and poverty." He turned a little away from her and murmured to himself: "It is also my last day of youth and joy and hope."

Gabrielle pressed her hands against her breasts for a moment, like one in great dismay. The tears welled into her eyes. Then she gave a little moan of wonder and protest, and sprang towards him with out-stretched hands. "Do you not understand?" she cried. "Henri, Henri, I love you."

Lagardere grasped the out-stretched hands, and in another moment would have caught the girl in his arms, but a dry, crackling laugh arrested him. Gently restraining Gabrielle's advance, he turned his head and saw standing upon the bridge surveying him and Gabrielle a sinister figure. It was AEsop, returning from his stroll with Monsieur Peyrolles, who had paused on the bridge in cynical amusement of what he conceived to be a lovers' meeting between countryman and countrymaid, but whose face now flushed with a sudden interest as he recognized the face of the man in the gypsy habit.

Lagardere turned again to Gabrielle, and his face was calm and smiling. "Go in-doors," he said, pleasantly, "I will join you by-and-by."

Gabrielle, in her turn, had glanced at the sinister figure on the bridge, and, seeing the malevolence of its attitude, of its expression, had drawn back with a faint cry. "Henri," she said—"Henri, who is that watching us? He looks so evil."

Lagardere had recognized AEsop as instantly as AEsop had recognized Lagardere. AEsop now came slowly towards them, addressing them mockingly: "Do not let me disturb you. Life is brief, but love is briefer."

Lagardere again commanded Gabrielle: "Go in, child, at once."

"Are you in danger?" Gabrielle asked, fearfully.

Lagardere shook his head and repeated his command: "No. Go in at once. Wait in your room until I come for you."

AEsop looked at him with raised eyebrows and a wicked grin. "Why banish the lady? She might find my tale entertaining."

At an imperative signal from Lagardere, Gabrielle entered the Inn. Lagardere then advanced towards AEsop, who watched him with folded arms and his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, AEsop greeted Lagardere:

"So the rat has come to the trap at last. Lagardere in Paris—ha, ha!"

Lagardere looked at him ponderingly. "The thought amuses you."

AEsop's grin deepened. "Very much. Before nightfall you will be in prison."

Lagardere seemed to deny him. "I think not. You carry a sword and can use it. You shall fight for your life, like your fellow-assassins."

AEsop looked about him. "I have but to raise my voice. There must be people within call even in this sleepy neighborhood."

Lagardere still smiled, and the smile was still provocative. "But if you raise your voice I shall be reluctantly compelled to stab you where you stand. Ah, coward, can you only fight in the dark when you are nine to one?"

AEsop gave his hilt a hitch. "You will serve my master's turn as well dead as alive. I wear the best sword in the world, and it longs for your life."

Lagardere pointed to the tranquil little Inn. "Behind yonder Inn there is a garden. To-day, when all the world is at the fair, that garden is as lonely as a cemetery. At the foot of the garden runs the river, a ready grave for the one who falls. There we can fight in quiet to our heart's content."

AEsop glared at Lagardere with a look of triumphant hatred. "I mean to kill you, Lagardere!" he said, and the tone of his voice was surety of his intention and his belief in his power to carry it out.

Lagardere only laughed as lightly as before. "I mean to kill you, Master AEsop. I have waited a long time for the pleasure of seeing you again."

Then the pair passed into the quiet Inn and out of the quiet Inn into the quiet Inn's quiet garden, and down the quiet garden to a quiet space hard by the quiet river.



XVII

IN THE GARDEN

Beyond the Inn there ran, or rather rambled, a long garden, the more neglected part of which was grown with flowers, while the better-attended portion was devoted to the cultivation of vegetables. Where the garden ceased a little orchard of apple-trees, pear-trees, and plum-trees began, and this orchard was followed by a small open space of grassed land which joined the river. Here a diminutive landing-stage had been built, which was now crazy enough with age and dilapidation, and attached to this stage were a couple of ancient rowing-boats, against whose gaunt ribs the ripples lapped. Sometimes this garden and orchard had their visitors: the landlord and his friends would often smoke their pipes and drink their wine under the shade of the trees, and even passing clients would occasionally indulge themselves with the privilege of a stroll in the untidy garden. But to-day the place was quite deserted—as desolate as a garden in a dream. Every one who could go had gone to the fair, and those travellers who paused to drink in passing took their liquor quickly and hurried on to share in the fair's festivity. The landlord was kept busy enough attending to those passers-by in the early part of the day, and, now that the stream had ceased and custom slackened, he was glad enough to take his ease in-doors and leave his garden to its loneliness.

When, therefore, Lagardere and AEsop entered the garden they found it as quiet and as uninhabited as any pair of swordsmen could desire. They walked in silence along the path between the flowers and the vegetables, Lagardere only pausing for a moment to pluck a wild rose which he proposed in the serenity of his confidence to present to Gabrielle, and while he paused AEsop eyed him maliciously and amused himself by kicking with his heel at a turnip and hacking it into fragments. Lagardere put his flower into the lapel of his coat, and the pair resumed their silent progress through the orchard till they came to a halt upon the river-bank.

Lagardere looked about him and seemed pleased with what he saw. There was no one in sight, either hard by or upon the opposite bank of the river, and he felt that it might be taken for granted that there was no one within hearing. He turned to AEsop and addressed him, very pleasantly: "This, I think, will serve our purpose as well as any place in the world."

AEsop grinned malignly. "It would suit my purpose," he said, "to get you out of the way in any place in the world."

Lagardere laughed softly and shook his head. "One or other of us has to be got out of the way," he said, quietly, "but I think, Master AEsop, that I am not the man. I have been waiting a long time for this chance; but I always felt sure that the time would bring the chance, and I mean to make an end of you."

AEsop scowled. "You talk very big, Little Parisian," he said, "but you will find that in me you deal with a fellow of another temper to those poor hirelings you have been lucky enough to kill. They were common rogues enough, that handled their swords like broom-handles. I was always a master, and my skill has grown more perfect since we last met at Caylus. I think you will regret this meeting, Captain Lagardere."

Now, Lagardere had been listening very patiently while AEsop spoke, and while he listened a thought came into his mind which at first seemed too fantastic for consideration, but which grew more tempting and more entertainable with every second. To thrust AEsop from his path was one thing, and a thing that must be done if Lagardere's life-purposes were to be accomplished. But to get rid of AEsop and yet to use him—at once to obliterate him and yet to recreate him, so that he should prove the most deadly enemy of the base cause that he was paid to serve—here was a scheme, a dream, that if it could be made a reality would be fruitful of good uses. It was therefore with a strange smile that he listened while AEsop menaced him with regret for the meeting, and it was with a strange smile that he spoke:

"I do not think so," he answered, maturing his plan even while he talked, and finding it the more feasible and the more pleasing. "You are a haggard rascal, Master AEsop, and the world should have no use for you. I believe that by what I am about to do I shall render the world and France and myself a service. You are nothing more than a rabid wild beast, and it is well to be quit of you." As he spoke he drew his sword and came on guard.

Something in the composed manner and the mocking speech of Lagardere seemed to bid AEsop pause. He let his weapon remain in its sheath and began to parley.

"Come, come, Captain Lagardere," he began, "is it necessary, after all, that we should quarrel? You have got Nevers's girl—there is no denying that—but we do not want her. We have a girl of our own. Now I know well enough, for I have not studied love books and read love books for nothing," and he grinned hideously as he spoke, "that you are in love with the girl you carry about with you. Well and good. How if we call a truce, make a peace? You shall keep your girl, and do as you please with her; we will produce our girl, and do as we please with her. You shall have as much money as you want, I can promise that for the Prince of Gonzague, and you can live in Madrid or where you please with your pretty minion. Make a bargain, man, and shake hands on it."

Lagardere eyed the hunchback with something of the compassion and curiosity of a surgeon about to deal with an ugly case. He saw now his enemy's hand and the strength of his enemy's cards and the cleverness of his enemy's plan, and was not in the least abashed by its audacity or his own isolation.

"Master AEsop," he said, briefly, "if it ever came to pass that I should find myself making terms or shaking hands with such as you, or the knave that uses you for his base purpose, I should very swiftly go and hang myself, I should be so ashamed of my own bad company. We have talked long enough; it is time for action." He saluted quickly as he spoke, according to the code of the fencing-schools.

And AEsop, in answer to the challenge, drew his own sword and answered the salutation. "Gallant captain," he sneered, "I have been in training for this chance these many years, and I think I will teach you to weep for your heroics." As he spoke he came on guard, and the blades met.

The place that had been chosen for the combat was suitable enough, quite apart from its solitude. The morning air was clear and even; the sun's height caused no diverting rays to disturb either adversary; the grass was smooth and supple to the feet; there was ample ground to break in all directions.

The moment that Lagardere's steel touched that of AEsop's, he knew that AEsop's boast had not been made in vain. Though it was a long time now since that afternoon in the frontier Inn when he and AEsop had joined blades before, he remembered the time well enough to appreciate the difference between the sword he then encountered and the sword he encountered now. Clearly AEsop had spoken the truth when he had talked of his daily practice and his steady advance towards perfection. But, and Lagardere smiled as he remembered this, AEsop had forgotten or overlooked the possibility that Lagardere's own sword-play would improve with time—that Lagardere's own sword-play was little likely to rust for lack of usage.

The few minutes that followed upon the encounter of the hostile steels were minutes of sheer enjoyment to Lagardere. AEsop was a worthy antagonist, that he frankly admitted from the first, and he wished, as he fought, that he could divide his personality and admire, as a spectator, the passage at arms between two such champions. Of the result, from the first, Lagardere had not the slightest doubt. He was honestly convinced, by his simple logic of steel, that it was his mission to avenge Nevers and to expiate his murder. He was, as it were, a kind of seventeenth century crusader, with a sealed and sacred mission to follow; and while, as a stout-hearted and honest soldier of fortune, he had no more hesitation about killing a venomous thing like AEsop than he would have had about killing a snake, he was in this special instance exulted by the belief that in killing one of the men of the moat of Caylus his sword was the sword of justice, his sword was the sword of God.

If, therefore, it was soon plain to him that the boast of the hunchback was true enough, and that his skill with his weapon had greatly bettered in the years that had elapsed since their previous encounter, Lagardere was rejoiced to find it so, as it gave a greater difficulty and a greater honor to his achievement. It was clear, too, from the expression on AEsop's face, after the first few instants of the engagement, that he was made aware that his skill was not as the skill of Lagardere. He fought desperately, and yet warily, knowing that he was fighting for his life, and trying without success every cunning trick that he had learned in the fencing-schools of Spain. The thrust of Nevers he did not attempt, for of that he knew Lagardere commanded the parry, but there were other thrusts on which he relied to gain the victory, and each of these he tried in succession, only to be baffled by Lagardere's instinctive steel.

Lagardere, watching him while they fought, hated his adversary for his own sake apart from his complicity in the crime of Caylus. AEsop was the incarnation of everything that was detestable in the eyes of a man like Lagardere. A splendid swordsman, his sword was always lightly sold to evil causes. He prostituted the noble weapon that Lagardere idolized to the service of the assassin, the advantage of the bully, and the revenge of the coward. He would have felt no scruple about slaying him, even if AEsop had not been, as now he was, a dangerous and unexpected enemy in his path.

AEsop, unable to make Lagardere break ground, and unable to get within Lagardere's guard, now began to taunt his antagonist savagely, calling him a child-stealer and a woman-wronger, with other foul terms of abuse that rolled glibly from his lips in the ugliness of his rage and fear.

Lagardere listened with his quiet smile, and when the hunchback made a pause he answered him with scornful good-humor. "You waste your breath, Master AEsop," he said, "and you should be saving it for your prayers, if you know any, or for your fighting wind, if there is nothing of salvation in you. You are a very base knave. I do not think you ever did an honest, a kindly, or a generous deed in your life. I know that you have done many vile things, and would do more if time were given to you; but the time is denied, Master AEsop, and yet you may serve a good cause in your death."

Even as he spoke Lagardere's tranquillity of defence suddenly changed into rapidity of attack. His blade leaped forward, made sudden swift movements which the bravo strove in vain to parry, and then AEsop dropped his sword and fell heavily upon the grass. He was dead, dead of the thrust in the face, exactly between the eyes, the thrust of Nevers.

Lagardere leaned over his dead enemy and smiled. His account against the assassins of Caylus was being slowly paid; but never had any item of that account been annulled with less regret. The others—Staupitz, Saldagno, Pinto, and the rest—had been ruffianly creatures enough, but there was a kind of honesty, a measure of courage in their ruffianism. They were, at least some of them, good-hearted in their way, true to their comrades and their leaders; but of the ignoble wretch that now lay a huddle of black at his feet, Lagardere knew nothing that was not loathsome, and he knew much of Master AEsop.

Lagardere stooped and gathered a handful of grass, wiped his sword and sheathed it.

"Yes," he said, apostrophizing the dead body, "you shall serve a good cause now, Master AEsop, if you have never served a good cause yet."

He looked anxiously about him as he spoke to make sure that the solitude was still undisturbed. There was not a human being within sight on either bank of the river. This quiet, this isolation, were very welcome to his temper just then, for the purpose that had come into Lagardere's mind at the commencement of the combat had matured, had ripened during its course into a feasible plan. It had its risks, but what did that matter in an enterprise that was all risk; and if it succeeded, as, thanks to its very daring, it might succeed, it promised a magnificent reward. That it involved the despoiling of a dead body in no way harassed Lagardere. He was never one to let himself be squeamish over trifles where a great cause was at stake, and, though much that was inevitable to the success of his scheme was repellent to him, he choked down his disgust and faced his duty with a smile. Quickly he dragged the body of his dead enemy into the shelter and seclusion of the orchard-trees. There, rolling AEsop on his face, he proceeded nimbly and dexterously to strip his clothes from his body. Soon the black coat, black vest, black breeches, black stockings, black boots, and black hat lay in a pile of sable raiment on the orchard grass. As he garnered his spoil, a little book dropped from the pocket of the black coat and lay upon the grass. Lagardere picked it up and opened it with a look of curiosity that speedily changed to one of aversion, for the book was a copy in Italian of the Luxurious Sonnets of Messer Pietro Arentino, which Lagardere, who knew Italian, found at a glance to be in no way to his taste, and the little book had pictures in it which pleased him still less. With a grunt of disgust at this strange proof of the dead man's taste in literature, Lagardere stepped to the edge of the orchard, and, holding the volume in his finger and thumb, pitched it over the open space into the river, where it sank. Having thus easily got rid of the book, Lagardere began to cast about him for some way to dispose of the body.

The boats that lay alongside of the little landing-stage caught his eye. Lifting Master AEsop's corpse from the ground, he trailed it to the crazy structure, and placed it in the oldest and most ramshackle of the two weather-worn vessels. After untying the rope that fastened the boat to its wharf, Lagardere caught up a boat-hook that lay hard by, and, raising it as if it were a spear, he drove it with all his strength against the bottom of the boat and knocked a ragged hole in its rotting timbers. Then, with a vigorous push, he sent the boat out upon the smooth, swift river.

The vigor of its impetus carried the boat nearly out to the middle of the stream before the river could take advantage of the leak. Then, in a few minutes, Lagardere saw the strangely burdened craft slowly sink and finally settle beneath the surface of the stream.

When the boat and its burden were out of sight, and the water ran as smoothly as if it were troubled with no such secret, Lagardere turned, and, gathering up the garments of his antagonist as a Homeric hero would have collected his fallen enemy's armor, rolled them into as small a bundle as possible, and, putting them under his arm, made his way cautiously back to the Inn.

He gained its shelter unperceived. Unperceived and noiselessly he ascended the stairs which led to his room, and, opening the door, flung his bundle upon the ground. He then closed the door again, and, going a little farther down the corridor, knocked at an adjoining door, which immediately opened, and Gabrielle stood before him looking pale and anxious. Lagardere smiled cheerfully at her, and, taking from his coat the white rose which he had plucked in the garden, offered it to her.

The girl caught it and pressed it to her lips, and then asked, eagerly: "The man—where is the man? What has become of him?"

Lagardere affected an air of surprise, and then, with the manner of one who thought the matter of no importance, answered her: "You mean my friend in black who spoke to me just now?"

The girl nodded. "Yes," she said, "he seemed evil, he seemed dangerous."

Lagardere smiled reassuringly. "Evil he may be," he said, "but not dangerous—no, not dangerous. Indeed, I am inclined to think he will be more useful to us than otherwise."

"But he seemed to threaten you," the girl protested.

Lagardere admitted the fact. "He was a little threatening at first," he agreed, "but I have managed to pacify him, and he will not trouble us any more."

He took the girl's cold hand and kissed it reverentially. "Gabrielle," he said, "we go to Paris to-day, but till I come for you and tell you it is time for us to depart I want you to remain in this chamber. You will do this for me, will you not?"

"I will always do whatever you wish," the girl answered, and her eyes filled with tears.

Lagardere was filled with the longing to clasp her in his arms, but he restrained himself, again kissed her hand with the same air of tender devotion, and motioned to her to enter her room. When she had closed the door he returned to his own room, and there, with amazing swiftness, divested himself of his outer garments and substituted for them those of the dead AEsop.

Producing a small box from a battered portmantle that stood in a corner, he produced certain pigments from it, and, facing a cracked fragment of unframed looking-glass that served for a mirror, proceeded with the skill of an experienced actor to make certain changes in his appearance.

His curiously mobile face he distorted at once into an admirable likeness to the hunchback, and then, this initial likeness thus acquired, he heightened and intensified it by few but skilful strokes of coloring matter. Then he dexterously rearranged his hair to resemble the hunchback's dishevelled locks, compelling its curls to fall about his transformed face and shade it. Finally he surmounted all with the hunchback's hat, placed well forward on his forehead. He gave a smile of satisfaction at the result of his handiwork, and the smile was the malign smile of AEsop.

"That is good enough," he murmured, "to deceive a short-sighted fellow like Peyrolles, and as for his Highness of Gonzague, he has not seen me for so many years that there will be no difficulty with him."

He glanced at his new raiment with an expression of distaste. "When I get to Paris," he mused, "I will shift these habiliments. It is all very well to play the bird of prey, but it is somewhat unpleasant to wear the bird's own feathers."



XVIII

THE FACTION OF GONZAGUE

A little later in the day a company of joyous gentlemen made their way from the fair of Neuilly and came to a halt opposite the tavern whose green arbors seemed inviting enough after the heat of the dusty road. All of the company were richly dressed, most of the company were young—the joyous satellites of the central figure of the party. This was a tall, graceful Italianate man, who carried his fifty years with the grace and ease of thirty. He had a handsome face; those that admired him, and they were many, said there was no handsomer man at the court of the king than the king's familiar friend Louis de Gonzague. A man of the hour and a man of the world, Gonzague delighted to shine almost unrivalled and quite unsurpassed in the splendid court which the cardinal had permitted the king to gather about him. Something of a statesman and much of a scholar, Gonzague delighted to be the patron of the arts, and to lend, indirectly, indeed, but no less efficaciously, his counsels to the service of the cardinal during the cardinal's lifetime, and to the king now that the cardinal was gone. A man of pleasure, Gonzague was careful to enjoy all the delights that a society which found its chief occupation in the pursuit of amusement afforded. Even the youngest cavalier in Paris or Versailles would have regretted to find himself in rivalry with Gonzague for the favors of the fair. But in his pleasures, as in his policy, Gonzague was always discreet, reserved, even slightly mysterious, and though rumor had linked his name time and time again with the names of such gracious ladies as the cardinal had permitted to illuminate the court of the king, Gonzague had always been far too cautious, or too indifferent, to drift into anything that could in the least resemble an enduring entanglement. Indeed, there was an element of the Oriental in his tastes, which led him rather to find his entertainment in such light love as came and went by the back ways of palaces or could be sequestered in cheerful little country villas remote from curious eyes. This, however, was a matter of gossip, rumor, speculation. What was certainly known about Louis de Gonzague was that he delighted always to be surrounded by young gentlemen of blood and spirit, with whom his exquisite affability seemed at once to put him on a footing of equal age, and whose devotion to himself, his person, and his purposes he was always careful to acquire by a lavish generosity and that powerful patronage which his former friendship with the cardinal and his present influence over the king allowed him to extend.

Perhaps the most remarkable proof of Gonzague's astuteness, of Gonzague's suppleness, was afforded by the manner in which he had succeeded in holding the favor of the great cardinal through all the long years of Richelieu's triumph, and yet at the same time in retaining so completely the friendship of the king. When the cardinal died, and many gentlemen that served the Red Robe found themselves no longer in esteem, Gonzague passed at once into the circle of the king's most intimate friends. Gonzague, as the comrade of a ruling potentate, proved himself a master of all arts that might amuse a melancholic sovereign newly redeemed from an age-long tutelage, and eager to sate those many long-restrained pleasures that he was at last free to command. Gonzague's ambition appeared to be to play the Petronius part, to be the Arbiter of Elegancies to a newly liberated king and a newly quickened court.

Very wisely Gonzague had never made himself a politician. He had always allowed himself to appear as one that was gracefully detached, by his Italianate condition, from pledge to any party issues, and so in his suave, affable fashion he went his way, liked by all men who knew him slightly, counted on by the few men who believed they knew him well, and hugely admired by that vast congregation of starers and gapers who passionately display their approval of an urbane, almost an austere, profligacy.

In the long years in which Gonzague had contrived to establish for himself the enviable reputation of the ideal of high gentlehood, he had very quietly and cautiously formed, as it were, a kind of court within a court—a court that was carefully formed for the faithful service of his interests. He managed, by dexterously conferring obligations of one kind or another, to bind his adherents to him by ties as strong as the ties of kinship, by ties stronger than the ties of allegiance to an unsettled state and a shadowy idea of justice. There was a Gonzague party among the aristocracy of the hour, and a very strong party it promised to be, and very ably guided to further his own ends by the courteous, so seeming amiable gentleman who was its head.

About him at this moment were grouped some of the joyous members of that jovial sodality. There was Navailles, the brisk, the dissolute, the witty, always ready to risk everything, including honor, for a cast of the dice, for a kiss, for a pleasure or a revenge. There was Noce, pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving, always good-tempered, always good-humored, always serenely confident that the world as it existed was made chiefly for his amusement and the amusement of his friends. There was Taranne, a darker spirit, as ready as the rest of the fellowship to take the wine of life from the cup of joy in the hands of the dancing-girl, but a less genial drinker, a less cheerful and perhaps more greedy lover and feaster, as one who dimly and imperfectly appreciates that the conditions of things about him might not be destined to endure forever, and was, therefore, resolved to get as much of his share of the spoil of the sport while it lasted as any bandit of them all. There, too, was Oriol, the fat country gentleman, at once the richest and most foolish of the company. There, too, was Albret, who loved women more than wine; and Gironne, who loved wine more than women; and Choisy, who never knew which to love the best, but with whom both disagreed.

At the present moment the party was extremely hilarious. Its members had ransacked the toy-shops of the fair, and every man was carrying some plaything and making the most of it, and extolling its greater virtues than the playthings of his fellows. Taranne carried a pea-shooter, and peppered his companion's legs persistently, grinning with delight if any of his victims showed irritation. Oriol had got a large trumpet, and was blowing it lustily. Noce had bought a cup-and-ball, and was trying, not very successfully, to induce the sphere to abide in the hollow prepared for it. Navailles had got a large Pulcinello doll that squeaked, and was pretending to treat it as an oracle, and to interpret its mechanical utterances as profound comments on his companions and prophecies as to their fortunes. Albret was tripping over a skipping-rope; Gironne puffed at a spinning windmill; Choisy played on a bagpipes, and Montaubert on a flute. In the background Monsieur Peyrolles watched all this mirthfulness with indifference and his master's face with attention.

Gonzague looked round upon his friends with the indulgent smile of a still youthful school-master surrounded by his promising pupils. "Well, gentlemen, does the fair amuse you?" he asked, urbanely.

Navailles turned to his doll for inspiration, made it give its metallic squeak, and then, as if repeating what Pulcinello had whispered to him, replied: "Enormously."

Oriol trumpeted his approval loudly, and the expressions of the others bore ample testimony to their enjoyment.

"Well, gentlemen," said Gonzague, "I hope and think that I reserved the best for the end." He made a sign to Peyrolles, who approached him. "Where is the girl?" he questioned, in a low voice.

Peyrolles pointed to the caravan. "Shall I bring her?" he asked.

Gonzague nodded. Peyrolles crossed the grass, his course followed curiously by the eyes of Gonzague's friends, till he halted at the caravan and knocked at the door. Flora put out her head, and, recognizing Peyrolles, greeted him with an eager smile.

"The time has come," said Peyrolles, in a low voice, "for you to dance to this gentleman."

Flora touched him eagerly on the arm. "Which is my prince?" she asked.

Peyrolles gave a jerk of his head in the direction of Gonzague, and answered: "He in black with the star."

In a moment Flora had retired within the caravan, and emerged again with a pair of castanets in her hands. She advanced to Gonzague and made him a reverence. "Shall I dance for you, pretty gentleman?" she asked.

Gonzague watched her curiously, seeing in one swift, incisive glance that she might very well serve for his purpose. "With all my heart," he answered, courteously.

He seated himself at a table under the trees, with his little court grouped about him, and Flora began to dance. It was such a dance as only a Spaniard trained in the gypsy school could dance—a dance whose traditions go back to days when the Roman Empire was old, to days when the Roman Empire was young. Now active, now languid, by turns passionate, daring, defiant, alluring, a wonderful medley of exquisite contradictions, the girl leaped hither and thither, clicking her castanets and sending her bright glances like arrows towards the admiring spectators. She moved like a flame fluttered by the wind, like a butterfly, like a leaf, like any swift, volatile, shifting, shimmering thing. She seemed as agile as a cat, as tireless as a monkey, as free as a bird. Suddenly the dance that was all contradiction ended in a final contradiction. At the moment when her exuberance seemed keenest, her vitality fiercest, her action most animated, when her eyes were shining their brightest, her lips smiling their sweetest, and her castanets clicking their loudest, she suddenly became rigid, with arms extended, like one struck motionless by a catalepsy, her face robbed of all expression, her limbs stiff, her arms extended. She stood so for a few seconds, then a smile rippled over her face, her arms dropped to her sides, and she seemed to swoon towards the ground in a surrendering courtesy. The dance was at an end.

The delighted gentlemen applauded enthusiastically. All would have been eager to seek closer acquaintance with the gypsy, but all refrained because Gonzague himself rose from his seat and advanced towards the girl, who watched him, respectful and excited, with lowered lids.

Gonzague laid his hand on her shoulder with a caress that was almost paternal while he spoke: "I know more about you than you know yourself, child. Go back now. I have long been looking for you."

Flora could scarcely find breath to stammer: "For me?" She ventured to look up into the face of this grave and courtly gentleman, and she found something very attractive in the dark eyes that were fixed upon her with a look of so much benevolence. Gonzague pointed to Peyrolles, who was standing a little apart from the group of gentlemen.

"Peyrolles will come for you presently," he said. "Peyrolles will tell you what to do. Obey him implicitly."

Flora made him another courtesy. "Yes, monseigneur," she faltered, and, turning, ran swiftly to the caravan and disappeared within its depths. Each of the young gentlemen gladly would have followed her, but, as before, they were restrained by the action of Gonzague, who seemed to have taken the girl under his protection, and no one of them was foolhardy enough to dream of crossing Gonzague in a pleasure or a caprice.

But during the progress of the dance there had been an addition to the little group of gentlemen. Chavernay had come over the bridge, with, curiously enough, Cocardasse and Passepoil at his heels. When he saw that a dance was toward, he made a sign to his followers to remain upon the bridge, while he himself mingled with his habitual companions. When the dance was over and Flora had disappeared, Chavernay advanced to Gonzague. He, at least, was foolhardy enough for anything. "I give you my word, cousin," he said, "that I have already lost the half of my heart to your dancer. Are we rivals with the gypsy lass, cousin?"

Gonzague looked urbanely and yet gravely at his impudent kinsman. "You must look for love elsewhere," he said, decisively. "I have reasons, though not such reasons as yours; but you will oblige me."

Chavernay laughed contentedly. "My faith! there are plenty of pretty women in the world, and plenty of ugly men, as it would seem. I have brought you some friends of yours."

He made a signal as he spoke, and Cocardasse and Passepoil, descending from their post upon the bridge, advanced towards the brilliant group, bowing grotesquely as they did so, with their big hats in their hands and their long rapiers tilting up their ragged cloaks. All the party gazed in amazement at the whimsical apparitions, to the great indignation of Cocardasse, who whispered angrily to his companion: "Why the devil do they stare at us so?" While to him his companion replied, soothingly: "Gently, gently."

The gentlemen were screaming with laughter. Taranne fired a volley of peas, which rattled harmlessly against the long boots of Passepoil. Navailles consulted his oracle, and declared that he liked the big one best. Oriol, with a flourish of his trumpet, announced that he preferred the smug fellow. Peyrolles, with a look of horror on his face, rushed forward and attempted to intercept the new-comers, but he was too late. Cocardasse was already in front of Gonzague, and had made him a tremendous obeisance. "We have the honor to salute your highness," he said, sonorously.

Gonzague observed him with well-restrained astonishment, and questioned Chavernay: "Who are these—gentlemen?"

Chavernay was eager to explain that he had come across them in the fair, and had taken a great fancy to them. After some conversation he found that they were seeking the Prince de Gonzague, and thereupon he had consented to be their guide and to present them. At this point Peyrolles interposed. Coming close to Gonzague, he whispered something to him which caused for a moment a slight expression of dislike, almost of dread, to disturb the familiar imperturbability of his countenance. Then he looked at the bravos. "Gentlemen," he said, "I believe it is your wish to serve me. A man can never have too many friends. Gentlemen, I accept your services." He turned to his familiar, and ordered: "Peyrolles, get them some new clothes."

Peyrolles hurriedly beckoned Cocardasse and Passepoil apart, and could be seen at a little distance transferring money from his pocket to their palms, giving them instructions, and finally dismissing them.

Chavernay looked at Gonzague. "I congratulate you on your new friends."

Gonzague shook his head. "Judge no man by his habit. Hearts of gold may beat beneath those tatters."

Chavernay smiled. "I dare say they are no worse than most of your friends."

Taranne, Noce, Navailles, Oriol, Albret, Choisy, Gironne, and Montaubert caught him up angrily. They seemed offended at the suggestion. Gonzague placated them with a phrase: "Our dear Chavernay includes himself, no doubt."

Chavernay accepted the suggestion. "Oh yes; there is devilishly little to choose between any of us."

The impertinence of the answer and the impertinence of the speaker's carriage were not calculated to smooth the ruffled feelings of the gentlemen, but Chavernay was never one to bridle his speech in deference to the susceptibility of his cousin's satellites. He now eyed them mockingly, even provokingly, full of amusement, while they fumed and fretted, and hands crept to hilts. Cheerfully courageous, Chavernay was prepared at any moment to back his words with his sword. Gonzague, studying the lowering faces of his adherents, and smiling compassionately at the boyish insolence of Chavernay, interposed and stifled the threatened brawl. "Come, gentlemen," he said, graciously, "let there be no bickering. Chavernay has a sharp tongue, and spares no one, not even me, yet I am always ready to forgive him his impudence."

A word of Gonzague was a command—a wish, a law—to his faithful followers, and their countenances cleared as he spoke. Gonzague went on: "His Gracious Majesty the King will be leaving the fair soon, though I am glad to think that it seems to have diverted his majesty greatly. Let us attend upon him, gentlemen." Gonzague emphasized his words by leading the way across the bridge, and Chavernay and the others followed at his heels, a laughing, chattering, many-colored company of pleasure-seekers. Only Peyrolles remained behind.

When the last of them had crossed the bridge and was far away upon the road to Neuilly, a man came to the door of the Inn and looked thoughtfully after them.

The man was clad in black from head to foot, and his body was heavily bowed. As he moved slowly across the grass, Peyrolles hastened towards him, seeming to recognize him. "I was looking for you, Master AEsop," he cried; "I have good news for you."

The hunchback answered, quietly: "Good news is always welcome." And to the ears of Peyrolles the voice was the voice of AEsop, and to the eyes of Peyrolles the form and the face of the speaker were the form and the face of AEsop.

Peyrolles went on: "His highness the Prince de Gonzague is delighted with the girl you have found; she will pass admirably for the girl of Nevers."

The seeming AEsop nodded his head and said, quietly: "I am glad to hear it."

"The Prince wishes to see you," Peyrolles continued. "The Prince wishes you to enter his service. Master AEsop, Master AEsop, your fortune is made, thanks to me."

"Thanks to me, I think," the hunchback commented, dryly.

Peyrolles shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "Come to the Hotel de Gonzague to-morrow, and ask for me."

"I will come," the hunchback promised. Then Peyrolles hastened over the bridge, and made all speed to rejoin his master.

When he was well on his way the hunchback drew himself into a chair, laughing heartily. "Oh, AEsop, AEsop," Lagardere murmured to himself, "how vexed you would be if you knew how useful you prove to me!"



XIX

THE HALL OF THE THREE LOUIS

One of the handsomest rooms in the Palace of Gonzague, as the Palace of Nevers was now called, was known as the Hall of the Three Louis. It was so called on account of the three life-sized portraits which it contained. The first was the portrait of the late duke, Louis de Nevers, in all the pride of that youth and joyousness which was so tragically extinguished in the moat of Caylus. His fair hair fell about his delicate, eager face; his left hand rested upon the hilt of the sword he knew how to use so well; his right hand, perhaps in the pathos, perhaps in the irony of the painter's intention, was pressed against his heart, for Louis de Nevers had been a famous lover in his little day, but never so true a lover as when he wooed and won the daughter of the hostile house of Caylus. A heavy curtain by the side of the picture masked an alcove sacred to the memory of Nevers.

Facing the portrait of the dead duke was the portrait of his successor, of the present master of the house. Louis de Gonzague, in all other things a contrast to Louis de Nevers, contrasted with him most flagrantly in appearance. Against the fair, boyish face of Nevers you had to set the saturnine Italianate countenance of Gonzague. The brilliancy of Louis de Nevers was all external, bright as summer is bright, gay as summer is gay, cheerful as summer is cheerful. The brilliancy of Louis de Gonzague showed more sombrely, as melting gold flows in a crucible. No one who saw the picture could fail to deny its physical beauty, but many would deny it the instant, the appealing charm which caught at the heart of the spectator with the first glance he gave to the canvas that portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant colors—clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note, and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten its solemnity.

The third picture, which was placed between Louis de Nevers and Louis de Gonzague, was the portrait of Louis, not as he now looked, being King of France in reality, but as he looked some seventeen years earlier, when the cardinal was beginning his career, and when the peevishness of youth had not soured into the yellow melancholy of the monarch of middle age.

It was in this room, consecrated to the memory of his dead friend, to the honor of his living friend, and to the glory of his own existence, that Louis de Gonzague loved to work. It was a proof of his well-balanced philosophy that he found nothing to trouble him in the juxtaposition of the three pictures. The great double doors at one end of the room served to shut off a hall devoted for the most part to the private suppers which it was Louis de Gonzague's delight to give to chosen friends of both sexes, and when, as often happened, supper ended, and a choice company of half-drunken women and wholly drunken men reeled through the open doors into the room where the three Louis reigned, Gonzague, who himself kept always sober, was no more than cynically amused by the contrast between the noisy and careless crew who had invaded the chamber and the sinister gravity with which the portraits of the three Louis regarded one another.

The king himself, who sometimes since his freedom surreptitiously made one at these merry gatherings, where a princely fortune and a more than princely taste directed all that appealed to all appetites—the king himself, coming flushed from one of these famous suppers into the sudden coolness and quiet of the great room, would appear to be more impressed than his host at the sudden sight of the three canvases. Then, in a voice perhaps slightly unsteady, but still carrying in its flood the utterance of a steady purpose, Louis of France would catch Louis de Gonzague by the wrist, and, pointing to the bright, smiling image of Louis de Nevers, would repeat for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time his oath of vengeance against the assassin of his friend if ever that assassin should come into his power. And hearing this oath for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time, Louis de Gonzague would always smile his astute smile and incline his head gravely in sign of sympathy with the king's feelings, and allow his fine eyes to be dimmed for an instant with a suggestion of tears.

The room was an interesting room to any one curious as to the concerns of the Prince de Gonzague for other reasons than the presence of the three pictures, for to any one who knew anything about the arrangements of the palace this room represented, as it were, a kind of debatable land between the kingdom of Gonzague on the one side and the kingdom of Nevers on the other. A door on the left communicated with the private apartments of Louis de Gonzague. Cross the great room to the right, and you came to a door communicating with the private apartments of Madame the Princess de Gonzague. The Prince de Gonzague never passed the threshold of the door that led to the princess's apartments. The Princess de Gonzague never passed the threshold of the door that led to the prince's apartments. Ever since their strange marriage the man and the woman had lived thus apart; the man, on his part, always courteous, always deferential, always tender, always ready to be respectfully affectionate, and the woman, on her part, icily reserved, wrapped around in the blackness of her widowhood, inexorably deaf to all wooing, immovably resolute to be alone.

What rumor said was, for once, quite true. The young Duchess de Nevers, on the night of her marriage to Prince Louis de Gonzague, had warned him that if he attempted to approach her with the solicitations of a husband she would take her life, and Louis de Gonzague, who, being an Italian, was ardent, but who, being an Italian, was also very intelligent, saw that the young wife-widow meant what she said and would keep her word, and desisted discreetly from any attempt to play the husband. After all, he had his consolations: he controlled the vast estates of his dead friend and kinsman, and though he felt for the lady he had married a certain animal attraction, which easily cooled as the years went on, his passion for the wealth of Nevers was more pronounced than his passion for the wife of Nevers, and he contented himself easily enough with the part assigned to him by his wife in the tragi-comedy. Every day he requested, very courteously, through Monsieur Peyrolles, permission to wait upon the princess, and every day the princess, also through a servant, expressed her regret that the state of her health would not allow her the pleasure of receiving his highness. So it had been through the years since Louis de Nevers was done to death in the moat of Caylus.

On the day after the fair at Neuilly, Louis de Gonzague was seated in the room of the Three Louis busily writing at a table. By his side stood Peyrolles, his gorgeous attire somewhat unpleasantly accentuating the patent obsequiousness with which he waited upon his master's will. For a while Gonzague's busy pen formed flowing Italian characters upon the page before him. Presently he came to an end, reread his letter, shook over the final writings some silver sand, then folded it and sealed it leisurely. When he had done he spoke to Peyrolles:

"This letter is to go to his majesty. Send Dona Flora here. Stay! Who is in the antechamber?"

Peyrolles answered with a bow: "The Chevalier Cocardasse and the Chevalier Passepoil, monseigneur."

Gonzague made a faint grimace. "Let them wait there."

Peyrolles inclined profoundly. "Yes, monseigneur," he said, and waited. The long knowledge of his master's manner, the long study of the expression on his master's face, told him he had not done with him, and he was right, for in a moment Gonzague spoke to him again:

"This gypsy girl will serve the turn to perfection. She is dark, as Gabrielle de Caylus was dark. She is beautiful, not so beautiful as Gabrielle de Caylus indeed, but, bah! filia pulchra, matre pulchrior. Before the king to-day I will produce her. The princess cannot but accept her. If afterwards a charming young girl should die of a decline—many die so—the fortune of Louis de Nevers becomes the fortune of Louis de Gonzague, who will know very well what to do with it, having the inestimable advantage of being alive."

Peyrolles indulged in the privilege of a faint little laugh at this witticism of his master, but apparently the applause did not please Gonzague, who gave him a gesture of dismissal. "Send the girl to me at once," he said; and with a still more humble salute Peyrolles quitted the apartment. When Gonzague was alone he sat for a few minutes staring before him like one who dreams waking. Then he turned and glanced at the picture of Louis de Nevers, and an ironical smile wrinkled, more than time had ever done, his handsome face. Evidently the contemplation of the picture seemed to afford him a great deal of satisfaction, for he was still looking at it, and still wearing the same amused smile, when the door behind him opened and Flora came timidly into the room. She was not in appearance the same Flora who had dwelt in the caravan and danced for strangers on the previous day. She was now richly and beautifully dressed as a great lady should be, but she seemed more awkward in her splendid garments than she had ever seemed in the short skirts of the gypsy. Gonzague, whose every sense was acute, heard her come in, though she stepped very softly, and abandoned his contemplation of the picture of Louis de Nevers. He turned round and rose to his feet, and made her one of his exquisite salutations. The girl drew back with a little gasp and pressed her hands to her bosom.

Gonzague smiled paternally. "Are you afraid of me?"

The girl shook her head dubiously, and there was suspicion in her dark eyes as she asked: "What do you want of me?"

Gonzague smiled more paternally than before. "I want you to love me," he said; and then, seeing that the gypsy lifted her brows, he continued, leisurely: "Do not misunderstand me. Women still are sometimes pleased to smile on me. I do not want such smiles from you, child. There is another fate for you. Are you content with your new life?"

Flora answered him with a weary tone in her voice and a weary look on her pretty face. "You have given me fine clothes and fine jewels. I ought to be content. But I miss my comrades and my wandering life."

Gonzague was still paternal as he explained: "You must forget your wandering life. Henceforward you are a great lady. Your father was a duke."

Flora gave a little gasp, and questioned: "Is my father dead?"

Gonzague allowed his chin to fall upon his breast and an expression of deep gloom to overshadow his face. "Yes," he said, and his voice was as a requiem to buried friendship.

Flora's heart was touched by this display of friendship. "And my mother?" she asked.

Gonzague's face lightened. "Your mother lives."

Flora questioned again, this time very timorously: "Will she love me?"

Gonzague seemed to look at the girl sympathetically, but really looked at her critically. He found her so pleasing to his eye that he almost regretted that she had been chosen for the part she had to play, but also he found her on the whole so suited to that part that he felt bound to stifle his regret. "Surely," he said, and smiled kindly upon her.

Flora gave a little sigh of satisfaction. "I have always dreamed that I should be a great lady. And dreams come true, you know—the dreams that gypsies dream."

Gonzague raised his hand to check her speech. "Forget the gypsies. Forget that the gypsies called you Flora. Your name is Gabrielle."

Flora gave a start of surprise. "Gabrielle!" she said. "How strange! That is the name of my dearest friend."

It was Gonzague's turn to be surprised, but he never was known to betray an emotion. It was with an air of complete indifference that he asked: "Who is she?"

And Flora answered, simply: "A girl I knew and loved when we were living in Spain."

Gonzague knew that he was agitated; and that he had every reason to be agitated, but he knew also that no one beholding him would know of his agitation. "What became of her?" he asked, still with the same apparent indifference.

And Flora answered as readily as before: "We travelled to France together."

"Travelled to France together!" echoed Gonzague.

Perhaps, in spite of himself, some hint of keenness was betrayed in the voice he was so studious to keep indifferent, for this time Flora gave question for question, suspiciously: "Why does all this interest you?"

Gonzague's voice was perfectly indifferent when he replied: "Everything that concerns you interests me. Tell me; was this other Gabrielle a Spaniard like you?"

Flora shook her head. "Oh no. She was French."

"Was she, too, an orphan?" Gonzague asked.

"Yes," said Flora; "but she had a guardian who loved her like a father."

The gypsy girl could not guess what raging passions were masked by the changeless serenity of Gonzague's face. "Who was that?" he asked, as he might have asked the name of some dog or some cat.