A Gentleman of France

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'But, mademoiselle,' I stammered humbly, wondering what in the
world she meant, 'what have I done?'

'Done?' she repeated angrily. 'Done? It is not what you have
done, it is what you are. I have no patience with you. Why are
you so dull, sir? Why are you so dowdy? Why do you go about
with your doublet awry, and your hair lank? Why do you speak to
Maignan as if he were a gentleman? Why do you look always solemn
and polite, and as if all the world were a preche? Why? Why?
Why, I say?'

She stopped from sheer lack of breath, leaving me as much
astonished as ever in my life. She looked so beautiful in her
fury and fierceness too, that I could only stare at her and
wonder dumbly what it all meant.

'Well!' she cried impatiently, after bearing this as long as she
could, 'have you not a word to say for yourself? Have you no
tongue? Have you no will of your own at all, M. de Marsac?'

'But, mademoiselle,' I began, trying to explain.

'Chut!' she exclaimed, cutting me short before I could get
farther, as the way of women is. And then she added, in a
changed tone, and very abruptly, 'You have a velvet knot of mine,
sir. Give it me.'

'It is in my room,' I answered, astonished beyond measure at this
sudden change of subject, and equally sudden demand.

'Then fetch it, sir, if you please,' she replied, her eyes
flashing afresh. 'Fetch it. Fetch it, I say! It has served its
turn, and I prefer to have it. Who knows but that some day you
may be showing it for a love-knot?'

'Mademoiselle!' I cried, hotly. And I think that for the moment
I was as angry as she was.

'Still, I prefer to have it,' she answered sullenly, casting down
her eyes.

I was so much enraged, I went without a word and fetched it, and,
bringing it to her where she stood, in the same place, put it
into her hands. When she saw it some recollection, I fancy, of
the day when she had traced the cry for help on it, came to her
in her anger; for she took it from me with all her bearing
altered. She trembled, and held it for a moment in her hands, as
if she did not know what to do with it. She was thinking,
doubtless, of the house in Blois and the peril she had run there;
and, being for my part quite willing that she should think and
feel how badly she had acted, I stood looking at her, sparing her
no whit of my glance.

'The gold chain you left on my mother's pillow,' I said coldly,
seeing she continued silent, 'I cannot return to you at once, for
I have pledged it. But I will do so as soon as I can.'

'You have pledged it?' she muttered, with her eyes averted.

'Yes, mademoiselle, to procure a horse to bring me here,' I
replied drily. 'However, it, shall be redeemed. In return,
there is something I too would ask.'

'What?' she murmured, recovering herself with all effort, and
looking at me with something of her old pride and defiance.

'The broken coin you have,' I said. 'The token, I mean. It is
of no use to you, for your enemies hold the other half. It might
be of service to me.'

'How?' she asked curtly.

'Because some day I may find its fellow, mademoiselle,'

'And then?" she cried. She looked at me, her lips parted, her
eyes flashing. 'What then, when you have found its fellow, M. de
Marsac?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

'Bah!' she exclaimed, clenching her little hand, and stamping
her foot on the floor in a passion I could not understand. 'That
is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. You say nothing, and men
think nothing of you. You go with your hat in your hand, and
they tread on you. They speak, and you are silent! Why, if I
could use a sword as you can, I would keep silence before no man,
nor let any man save the King of France cock his hat in my
presence! But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin.
Take it and go. Send me that lad of yours to keep me awake. At
any rate he has brains, he is young, he is a man, he has a soul,
he can feel--if he were anything but a clerk.'

She waved me off in such a wind of passion as might have amused
me in another, but in her smacked so strongly of ingratitude as
to pain me not a little. I went, however, and sent Simon to her;
though I liked the errand very ill, and no better when I saw the
lad's face light up at the mention of her name. But apparently
she had not recovered her temper when he reached her, for he
fared no better than I had done; coming away presently with the
air of a whipped dog, as I saw from the yew-tree walk where I was
strolling.

Still, after that she made it a habit to talk to him more and
more; and, Monsieur and Madame de Rosny being much taken up with
one another, there was no one to check her fancy or speak a word
of advice. Knowing her pride, I had no fears for her; but it
grieved me to think that the lad's head should be turned. A
dozen times I made up my mind to speak to her on his behalf; but
for one thing it was not my business, and for another I soon
discovered that she was aware of my displeasure, and valued it
not a jot. For venturing one morning, when she was in a pleasant
humour, to hint that she treated those beneath her too inhumanly,
and with an unkindness as little becoming noble blood as
familiarity, she asked me scornfully if I did not think she
treated Simon Fleix well enough. To which I had nothing to
answer.

I might here remark on the system of secret intelligence by means
of which M. de Rosny, even in this remote place, received news of
all that was passing in France. But it is common fame. There
was no coming or going of messengers, which would quickly have
aroused suspicion in the neighbouring town, nor was it possible
even for me to say exactly by what channels news came. But come
it did, and at all hours of the day. In this way we heard of the
danger of La Ganache and of the effort contemplated by the King
of Navarre for its relief. M. de Rosny not only communicated
these matters to me without reserve, but engaged my affections by
farther proofs of confidence such as might well have flattered a
man of greater importance.

I have said that, as a rule, there was no coming or going of
messengers. But one evening, returning from the chase with one
of the keepers, who had prayed my assistance in hunting down a
crippled doe, I was surprised to find a strange horse, which had
evidently been ridden hard and far, standing smoking in the yard.
Inquiring whose it was, I learned that a man believed by the
grooms to be from Blois had just arrived and was closeted with
the baron. An event so far out of the ordinary course of things
naturally aroused my wonder; but desiring to avoid any appearance
of curiosity, which, if indulged, is apt to become the most
vulgar of vices, I refrained from entering the house, and
repaired instead to the yew-walk. I had scarcely, however,
heated my blood, a little chilled with riding, before the page
came to me to fetch me to his master.

I found M. de Rosny striding up and down his room, his manner so
disordered and his face disfigured by so much grief and horror
that I started on seeing him. My heart sinking in a moment, I
did not need to look at Madame, who sat weeping silently in a
chair, to assure myself that something dreadful had happened.
The light was failing, and a lamp had been brought into the room.
M. de Rosny pointed abruptly to a small piece of paper which lay
on the table beside it, and, obeying his gesture, I took this up
and read its contents, which consisted of less than a score of
words.

'He is ill and like to die,' the message ran, 'twenty leagues
south of La Ganache. Come at all costs. P. M.

'Who?' I said stupidly--stupidly, for already I began to
understand. Who is ill and like to die?'

M. de Rosny turned to me, and I saw that the tears were trickling
unbidden down his cheeks. 'There is but one HE for me,' he
cried. 'May God spare that one! May He spare him to France,
which needs him, to the Church, which hangs on him, and to me,
who love him! Let him not fall in the hour of fruition. O Lord,
let him not fall!' And he sank on to a stool, and remained in
that posture with his face in his hands, his broad shoulders
shaken with grief.

'Come, sir,' I said, after a pause sacred to sorrow and dismay;
'let me remind you that while there is life there is hope.'

'Hope?'

'Yes, M. de Rosny, hope,' I replied more cheerfully. 'He has
work to do. He is elected, called, and chosen; the Joshua of his
people, as M. d'Amours rightly called him. God will not take him
yet. You shall see him and be embraced by him, as has happened a
hundred times. Remember, sir, the King of Navarre is strong,
hardy, and young, and no doubt in good hands.'

'Mornay's,' M. de Rosny cried, looking up with contempt in his
eye.

Yet from that moment he rallied, spurred, I think, by the thought
that the King of Navarre's recovery depended under God on M. de
Mornay; whom he was ever inclined to regard as his rival. He
began to make instant preparations for departure from Rosny, and
bade me do so also, telling me, somewhat curtly and without
explanation, that he had need of me. The danger of so speedy a
return to the South, where the full weight of the Vicomte de
Turenne's vengeance awaited me, occurred to me strongly; and I
ventured, though with a little shame, to mention it. But M. de
Rosny, after gazing at me a moment in apparent doubt, put the
objection aside with a degree of peevishness unusual in him, and
continued to press on his arrangements as earnestly as though
they did not include separation from a wife equally loving and
beloved.

Having few things to look to myself, I was at leisure, when the
hour of departure came, to observe both the courage with which
Madame de Rosny supported her sorrow, 'for the sake of France,'
and the unwonted tenderness which Mademoiselle de la Vire, lifted
for once above herself, lavished on her. I seemed to stand--
happily in one light, and yet the feeling was fraught with pain--
outside their familiar relations; yet, having made my adieux as
short and formal as possible, that I might not encroach on other
and more sacred ones, I found at the last moment something in
waiting for me. I was surprised as I rode under the gateway a
little ahead of the others, by something small and light falling
on the saddle-bow before me. Catching it before it could slide
to the ground, I saw, with infinite astonishment, that I held in
my hand a tiny velvet bow.

To look up at the window of the parlour, which I have said was
over the archway, was my first impulse. I did so, and met
mademoiselle's eyes for a second, and a second only. The next
moment she was gone. M. de Rosny clattered through the gate at
my heels, the servants behind him. And we were on the road.

CHAPTER XIV.

M. DE RAMBOUILLET.

For a while we were but a melancholy party. The incident I have
last related which seemed to admit of more explanations than one
--left me in a state of the greatest perplexity; and this
prevailed with me for a time, and was only dissipated at length
by my seeing my own face, as it were, in a glass. For, chancing
presently to look behind me, I observed that Simon Fleix was
riding, notwithstanding his fine hat and feather and his new
sword, in a posture and with an air of dejection difficult to
exaggerate; whereon the reflection that master and man had the
same object in their minds--nay, the thought that possibly he
bore in his bosom a like token to that which lay warm in mine--
occurring to me, I roused myself as from some degrading dream,
and, shaking up the Cid, cantered forward to join Rosny, who, in
no cheerful mood himself, was riding steadily forward, wrapped to
his eyes in his cloak.

The news of the King of Navarre's illness had fallen on him,
indeed, in the midst of his sanguine scheming with the force of a
thunderbolt. He saw himself in danger of losing at once the
master he loved and the brilliant future to which he looked
forward; and amid the imminent crash of his hopes and the
destruction of the system in which he lived, he had scarcely time
to regret the wife he was leaving at Rosny or the quiet from
which he was so suddenly called. His heart was in the South, at
La Ganache, by Henry's couch. His main idea was to get there
quickly at all risks. The name of the King of Navarre's
physician was constantly on his lips. 'Dortoman is a good man.
If anyone call save him, Dortoman will,' was his perpetual cry.
And whenever he met anyone who had the least appearance of
bearing news, he would have me stop and interrogate him, and by
no means let the traveller go until he had given us the last
rumour from Blois--the channel through which all the news from
the South reached us.

An incident which occurred at the inn that evening cheered him
somewhat; the most powerful minds being prone, I have observed,
to snatch at omens in times of uncertainty. An elderly man, of
strange appearance, and dressed in an affected and bizarre
fashion, was seated at table when we arrived. Though I entered
first in my assumed capacity of leader of the party, he let me
pass before him without comment, but rose and solemnly saluted M.
de Rosny, albeit the latter walked behind me and was much more
plainly dressed. Rosny returned his greeting and would have
passed on; but the stranger, interposing with a still lower bow,
invited him to take his seat, which was near the fire and
sheltered from the draught, at the same time making as if he
would himself remove to another place.

'Nay,' said my companion, surprised by such an excess of
courtesy, 'I do not see why I should take your place, sir.'

'Not mine only,' the old man rejoined, looking at him with a
particularity and speaking with an emphasis which attracted our
attention, 'but those of many others, who I can assure you will
very shortly yield them up to you, whether they will or not.'

M. de Rosny shrugged his shoulders and passed on, affecting to
suppose the old man wandered. But privately he thought much of
his words, and more when he learned that he was an astrologer
from Paris, who had the name, at any rate in this country, of
having studied under Nostradamus. And whether he drew fresh
hopes from this, or turned his attention more particularly as we
approached Blois to present matters, certainly he grew more
cheerful, and began again to discuss the future, as though
assured of his master's recovery.

'You have never been to the King's Court?' he said presently,
following up, as I judged, a train of thought in his own mind.
'At Blois, I mean.'

'No; nor do I feel anxious to visit it,' I answered. 'To tell
you the truth, M. le Baron,' I continued with some warmth, 'the
sooner me are beyond Blois, the better I shall be pleased. I
think we run some risk there, and, besides, I do not fancy a
shambles. I do not think I could see the king without thinking
of the Bartholomew, nor his chamber without thinking of Guise.'

'Tut, tut!' he said, 'you have killed a man before now.'

'Many,' I answered.

'Do they trouble you?'

'No, but they were killed in fair fight,' I replied, 'That makes
a difference.'

'To you,' he said drily. 'But you are not the King of France,
you see. Should you ever come across him,' he continued,
flicking his horse's ears, a faint smile on his lips, 'I will
give you a hint. Talk to him of the battles at Jarnac and
Moncontour, and praise your Conde's father! As Conde lost the
fight and, he won it, the compliment comes home to him. The more
hopelessly a man has lost his powers, my friend, the more fondly
he regards them, and the more highly he prizes the victories he
call no longer gain.'

'Ugh!' I muttered.

'Of the two parties at Court,' Rosny continued, calmly
overlooking my ill-humour, 'trust D'Aumont and Biron and the
French clique. They are true to France at any rate. But
whomsoever you see consort with the two Retzs--the King of
Spain's jackals as men name them--avoid him for a Spaniard and a
traitor.'

'But the Retzs are Italians,' I objected peevishly.

'The same thing,' he answered curtly. 'They cry, "Vive le Roi!"
but privately they are for the League, or for Spain, or for
whatever may most hurt us; who are better Frenchmen than
themselves, and whose leader will some day, if God spare his
life, be King of France.'

'Well, the less I have to do with the one or the other of them,
save at the sword's point, the better I shall be pleased,' I
rejoined.

On that he looked at me with a queer smile; as was his way when
he had more in his mind than appeared. And this, and something
special in the tone of his conversation, as well, perhaps, as my
own doubts about my future and his intentions regarding me, gave
me an uneasy feeling; which lasted through the day, and left me
only when more immediate peril presently rose to threaten us.

It happened in this way. We had reached the outskirts of Blois,
and were just approaching the gate, hoping to pass through it
without attracting attention, when two travellers rode slowly out
of a lane, the mouth of which we were passing. They eyed us
closely as they reined in to let us go by; and M. de Rosny, who
was riding with his horse's head at my stirrup, whispered me to
press on. Before I could comply, however, the strangers cantered
by us, and turning in the saddle when abreast of us looked us in
the face. A moment later one of them cried loudly, 'It is he!'
and both pulled their horses across the road, and waited for us
to come up.

Aware that if M. de Rosny were discovered he would be happy if he
escaped with imprisonment, the king being too jealous of his
Catholic reputation to venture to protect a Huguenot, however
illustrious, I saw that the situation was desperate; for, though
we were five to two, the neighbourhood of the city--the gate
being scarcely a bow-shot off--rendered flight or resistance
equally hopeless. I could think of nothing for it save to put a
bold face on the matter, and, M. de Rosny doing the same, we
advanced in the most innocent way possible.

'Halt, there!' cried one of the strangers sharply. 'And let me
tell you, sir, you are known.'

'What if I am?' I answered impatiently, still pressing on. 'Are
you highwaymen, that you stop the way?'

The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but in a
moment retorted, 'Enough trifling, sir! Who YOU are I do not
know. But the person riding at your rein is M. de Rosny. Him I
do know, and I warn him to stop.'

I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my companion
answered at once and almost in the same words I had used. 'Well,
sir, and what of that?' he said.

'What of that?' the stranger exclaimed, spurring his horse so as
still to bar the way. 'Why, only this, that you must be a madman
to show yourself on this side of the Loire.'

'It is long since I have seen the other,' was my companion's
unmoved answer.

'You are M. de Rosny? You do not deny it?' the man cried in
astonishment.

'Certainly I do not deny it,' M. de Rosny answered bluntly. 'And
more, the day has been, sir,' he continued with sudden fire,
'when few at his Majesty's Court would have dared to chop words
with Solomon de Bethune, much less to stop him on the highway
within a mile of the palace. But times are changed with me, sir,
and it would seem with others also, if true men rallying to his
Majesty in his need are to be challenged by every passer on the
road.'

'What! Are you Solomon de Bethune?' the man cried
incredulously. Incredulously, but his countenance fell, and his
voice was full of chagrin and disappointment,

'Who else, sir?' M. de Rosny replied haughtily. 'I am, and, as
far as I know, I have as much right on this side of the Loire as
any other man.'

'A thousand pardons.'

'If you are not satisfied--'

'Nay, M. de Rosny, I am perfectly satisfied.'

The stranger repented this with a very crestfallen air, adding,
'A thousand pardons'; and fell to making other apologies, doffing
his hat with great respect. 'I took you, if you will pardon me
saying so, for your Huguenot brother, M. Maximilian,' he
explained. 'The saying goes that he is at Rosny.'

'I can answer for that being false,' M. de Rosny answered
peremptorily, 'for I have just come from there, and I will answer
for it he is not within ten leagues of the place. And now, sir,
as we desire to enter before the gates shut, perhaps you will
excuse us.' With which he bowed, and I bowed, and they bowed,
and we separated. They gave us the road, which M. de Rosny took
with a great air, and we trotted to the gate, and passed through
it without misadventure.

The first street we entered was a wide one, and my companion took
advantage of this to ride up abreast of me. 'That is the kind of
adventure our little prince is fond of,' he muttered. 'But for
my part, M. de Marsac, the sweat is running down my forehead. I
have played the trick more than once before, for my brother and I
are as like as two peas. And yet it would have gone ill with us
if the fool had been one of his friends.'

'All's well that ends well,' I answered in a low voice, thinking
it an ill time for compliments. As it was, the remark was
unfortunate, for M. de Rosny was still in the act of reining back
when Maignan called out to us to say we were being followed.

I looked behind, but could see nothing except gloom and rain and
overhanging eaves and a few figures cowering in doorways. The
servants, however, continued to maintain that it was so, and we
held, without actually stopping, a council of war. If detected,
we were caught in a trap, without hope of escape; and for the
moment I am sure M. do Rosny regretted that he had chosen this
route by Blois--that he had thrust himself, in his haste and his
desire to take with him the latest news, into a snare so patent.
The castle--huge, dark, and grim--loomed before us at the end of
the street in which we were, and, chilled as I was myself by the
sight, I could imagine how much more appalling it must appear to
him, the chosen counsellor of his master, and the steadfast
opponent of all which it represented.

Our consultation came to nothing, for no better course suggested
itself than to go as we had intended to the lodging commonly used
by my companion. We did so, looking behind us often, and saying
more than once that Maignan must be mistaken. As soon as we had
dismounted, however, and gone in, he showed us from the window a
man loitering near; and this confirmation of our alarm sending us
to our expedients again, while Maignan remained watching in a
room without a light, I suggested that I might pass myself off,
though ten years older, for my companion.

'Alas!' he said, drumming with his fingers on the table 'there
are too many here who know me to make that possible. I thank you
all the same.'

'Could you escape on foot? Or pass the wall anywhere, or slip
through the gates early?' I suggested.

'They might tell us at the Bleeding Heart,' he answered. But I
doubt it. I was a fool, sir, to put my neck into Mendoza's
halter, and that is a fact. But here is Maignan. What is it,
man?' he continued eagerly.

'The watcher is gone, my lord,' the equerry answered.

'And has left no one?'

'No one that I can see.'

We both went into the next room and looked from the windows. The
man was certainly not where we had seen him before. But the rain
was falling heavily, the eaves were dripping, the street was a
dark cavern with only here and there a spark of light, and the
fellow might be lurking elsewhere. Maignan, being questioned,
however, believed he had gone off of set purpose.

'Which may be read half a dozen ways,' I remarked.

'At any rate, we are fasting,' M. de Rosny answered. Give me a
full man in a fight. Let us sit down and eat. It is no good
jumping in the dark, or meeting troubles half way.'

We were not through our meal, however, Simon Fleix waiting on us
with a pale face, when Maignan came in again from the dark room.
'My lord,' he said quietly, 'three men have appeared. Two of
them remain twenty paces away. The third has come to the door.'
As he spoke we heard a cautious summons below, Maignan was for
going down, but his master bade him stand. Let the woman of the
house go,' he said.

I remarked and long remembered M. de Rosny's SANG-FROID on this
occasion. His pistols he had already laid on a chair beside him
throwing his cloak over them; and now, while we waited, listening
in breathless silence, I saw him hand a large slice of bread-and-
meat to his equerry, who, standing behind his chair, began eating
it with the same coolness. Simon Fleix, on the other hand, stood
gazing at the door, trembling in every limb, and with so much of
excitement and surprise in his attitude that I took the
precaution of bidding him, in a low voice, do nothing without
orders. At the same moment it occurred to me to extinguish two
of the four candles which had been lighted; and I did so, M. de
Rosny nodding assent, just as the muttered conversation which was
being carried on below ceased, and a man's tread sounded on the
stairs.

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