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Since July the ninth, when the young King married a princess of Spain at St. Jean-de-Luz, all Paris had been waiting with bated breath. It was now the end of August and the end of waiting. The city, liberated from its anxiety, shook with joyous acclamation. From near and far hail and huzza assailed the ears; bells clamoured and guns boomed. Heretofore sombrely respectable houses broke out in gaudy decoration; scrofulous blotches of colour, representative of the feverish happiness of the inmates and the pride of the nation, made of a drab, ill-smelling city a carnival that beggars description. Pennants flew from tower, turret, and wall. Tapestries hung from windows that accommodated the happiest spectators: ladies whose mechanical smiles never relaxed, and whose multicoloured garments vied with the flowers scattered in the streets; streets that for once had been swept where human ingenuity and aggressiveness made it possible. Even the most distant approaches, whence nothing of the Royal procession was likely to be seen, had been subjected to drastic improvements. Refuse-heaps burned here, not very brightly it is true, but with putrescent effect suggestive of those curious human creatures Louis the debonair would much rather have forgotten.

The remnants of restraint snapped. The cheering became a roar prolonged and indistinguishable; a deafening thunder rolling up hoarsely from the throats of a people for ever cheering yet never content. The more elect, those smiling ladies posted at the windows with chevaliers, booted and spurred, behind them, and the rich bourgeoisie crowding balconies almost as glittering and gaudy, knew what it portended. The Royal suite was leaving the Faubourg St. Antoine, where Louis and Marie Thérèse had now received the homage of the corporate bodies of Paris, and was started on its solemn procession through the Porte St. Antoine along to the Louvre. Smiles brightened, backs straightened, and even the most frivolous left off their flirtations. Their Majesties were actually about to permit their loyal subjects to behold them in their glory!

On the balcony of a narrow, steep-gabled house standing near the intersection of three roads a man and a little girl awaited the passing procession. They waited in silence. The man sat back lazily, his long legs stretched before him; the little girl stood on a stool at his side, one hand upon his shoulder, in the other a curious wooden doll. The man was wondering how many hours this folly would steal from practical enterprise; the little girl how short the fun would be for which she had come so far and waited so long.

But at last the spectacle flashed into view, rolling up from the common street as by magic. What a spectacle! Judging by the mad applause nothing like it had heretofore been witness to the glory of a heaven-anointed king. Which may or may not have been the reason why Captain Gremion grinned into his black beard and muttered something about sublime asses.

A malicious stretching of the facts to be expected of Monsieur le Capitaine. For, to be exact, the grand procession led off by two and seventy glossy-coated baggage mules and twelve gilded six-horse carriages! Moreover, the mules were no ordinary mules, but the property of His Eminence the Cardinal, and had silver bits and silver trappings, which, in a manner of speaking, quite obliterated the traces of their humble origin. The twelve six-horse carriages, not unlike monstrous tropical bugs crawling along with ponderous dignity and loud complaining, made a profound impression. Although, naturally enough, not as profound as would have been the case if His Eminence himself had been there in his scarlet gown and insignia of office. But, thanks to the silver-encrusted mules, with their precious cargo exploited from the people, the effect was certainly impressive. And, as was doubtless a most proper procedure, the Duc d’Orleans followed the mules and the King followed the Duke.

Naturally, this was at a nice distance. A troop of pages, like animated dolls, trailed the household of Orleans. After them came a squadron of musketeers, a regiment of light horse, and the King’s own gentlemen; a combination successfully designed to dazzle even the least imaginative without the additional grandeur supplied by the illustrious and bemedalled marshals of France.

In his silver brocade, sewn with pearls and set off by flame-coloured ribbons and plumes, the King cut a resplendent figure. He carried himself with easy grace, and becoming serenity dignified his youthful good looks. As was befitting so romantic a figure, the trappings of his Spanish horse were so thickly studded with precious stones that every proud movement gave off showers of dazzling light, and must have persuaded the dullest spectator that nothing less than a demi-god rode by. Even the cynics were forced to admit that young Louis supported his weight of grandeur as well as the horse supported its regal burden.

The same could not be said for the Queen. Sitting stiffly erect in a glittering coach overlaid with mesh-work of solid gold and silver, Marie Thérèse looked the stolid, stoutish princess that she was. But nothing could have exceeded the magnificence of her attire and the dress of her ladies. The spectators responded as was to be expected. This fattish young lady out of Spain had only to discard her mantle, with its pound or two of Royal gems, and every beggar in France might have drunk to the glory of Habsburg and Bourbon and broken bread besides! The cheering, thundering out anew, threatened to sunder the low-hanging clouds which, paradoxically, an approving Heaven had permitted to gather.

On his balcony Captain Gremion stared up into the sky, a grin on his bronzed face. It was certainly going to rain; in fact, unless his seaman’s intuition failed him, it was going to pour. Which meant a fortune in ruined silks and velvets, and the festivities only begun. Much as he hated Paris, he was bound to admit that Jean had been right. He could never have disposed of a cargo at better profit or with less difficulty. Moreover, as his old steward had also pointed out, little Lalage might come to look back upon this occasion with increasing satisfaction. Not every little provincial was privileged to visit the King’s own city of Paris for such a spectacle!

His eyes on the gathering clouds but his mind on sundry bales of rare Oriental stuffs still to be disposed of, the Captain caught the child close and boomed into her ear: “Sweetheart, I have something of importance to tell Jean. You may stand here, but not too near the railing. Mind now, no falling into the gutter, or what would poor Papa do?” He had risen to his feet, and the little girl was looking up at him gravely: “I shall not go too near, Papa. Have no fear, I shall be careful. But I cannot promise not to go a little nearer,” she told him distinctly, and with such calm finality that he burst out laughing, and must, of course, repeat the saying to the old man below stairs.

As for Lalage, so soon as she was alone she pulled the heavy chair her father had just vacated to within a foot of the railing and climbed up into it. The Queen’s household was drifting by; the carriages of her ladies preceded by pages and outriders, and followed by guardsmen dressed in blue.

The little girl thought the ladies not unlike coloured cabbages surmounted by egg faces. The pages were all alike, stiff little manikins half hidden in the banners they carried. The outriders looked self-important, the guardsmen very fierce. She was on the point of climbing down, bored with so much repetition, when the unforeseen happened. A trace on one of the carriage-horses actually came unfastened and dared to entangle itself in the floating ribbons and almost tripped the team behind. Fortunately for whosoever would be accounted responsible, it was the last carriage which suffered the indignity. And in the last carriage were only a doddering pair of ancient baronesses destined to the service of the undermistress of the robes. Nevertheless, the carriage had to stop; the outriders had to stop; and the grooms had to decide whose duty it was to repair the colossal misfortune.

The rest of the procession moved on in blissful ignorance, while the unfortunate carriage stood at the crossroads, the centre of angry confusion. One of the baronesses thrust out her head and screamed at a guardsman, who instantly responded with the grace of a winged creature. The little girl clapped her hands and leaned forward eagerly.

“Monsieur Marigny,” shouted the Baroness, “I will have you to know that this outrage must cease. Have the goodness to say as much to the grooms.”

“Madame,” replied Monsieur Marigny, “I am desolated. But consider how the people will benefit. Grace and nobility are seldom seen at crossroads.”

The Baroness studied the young flatterer with her faded blue eyes, and what his soft southern voice had not affected his smile comprised. Her anger melted. She saw herself suddenly as she had never been—beautiful, provocative, much to be envied.

“Ah, monsieur, I spoke hastily. As you say it is of no consequence. A moment more or less is no great matter.”

The bow he made might well have flattered a queen. The small watcher on the balcony, who, be it noted, had read too many fairy-tales and lived too much alone, thrilled at the pretty sight and music of his voice. “Madame, heaven is a thing of moments,” he informed the poor old Baroness in melting tones, and, bowing again, swung his horse about.

It was then that little Lalage had a good look at him, and was so agreeably astonished she almost lost her balance. He was not a bit fierce, nor the least terrifying nor even bored, as were the other wooden-faced soldiers. He was young, his olive-skinned face, though suggestive of pride, expressed a sparkling humour. But his mouth had a cynical twist and his eyes, lifted that instant to the balcony, were very steady and very dark.

Lalage recollected herself. The gentleman was looking at her. As best she could on such precarious ground, she bobbed a curtsy but, unfortunately, in catching up her skirts the little wooden doll flew out of her hand and over the balcony. Whereupon she perceived with a thrill how right she was about the sparkle. Monsieur Marigny swept off his plumed hat and smiled in a manner to make one’s little heart dance in the breast. Still smiling, he crossed the intersection to her balcony, dismounted, picked up the doll and, back in the saddle, was about to toss the toy up to her when her sweet child’s voice stayed him: “Poor Elizabeth! I trust it did not break her head, monsieur,” said Lalage, gravely sympathetic and delightfully polite.

Monsieur Marigny changed his mind about the doll. A quite ridiculous impulse urged him to keep it as something eminently fitting to be the memento of a somewhat ludicrous and wholly artificial splendour. Besides, the grave little miss gazing down at him was the one bit of genuine loveliness in the whole tiresome show. Laughing, he pocketed the tiny doll, doffed his plumes and, in the act of swinging about, reigned-in startled. A ray of late sunlight had descended upon the little figure on the balcony to tangle in the soft strands of her hair and transform to glowing ivory her dainty cameo-face. Mon Dieu! Here in miniature was the Greek ideal of golden beauty—the child was captured sunlight made flesh! Behind him the carriage creaked into motion, the pages fell in line and the guard assumed its frozen mien. But Monsieur Marigny took time to call back over his bright-blue shoulder: “Elizabeth for luck, little mademoiselle! And I pray you to wish me a heart as irresistibly hard as her head.”

Somewhile later Captain Gremion returned for his daughter. He found her quiet as a mouse gazing down the deserted street. Said she: “I have seen the Prince. He doffed his hat and I curtsied just as Sister Mary Magdalene taught me.” Much amused, the Captain laughed heartily: “Come, come, we sail too fast. Listen, sweetheart, would a duke not do? Or if a prince, why not His Majesty?”

The little girl seemed to be turning this over in mind, her gold-flecked eyes fixed upon the road. Then, with a sharp tap of a tiny slippered foot she retorted hotly: “You may laugh, Papa, if it pleases you. But for all that, he shall be my prince. And I shall pray his heart stays as good and strong as Elizabeth’s head!”

Seven is a magic number. Students of the mysteries deem it to be sacred. Very pious people contend that it symbolizes completion; that is to say, perfection. Applied to the first seven years following Louis’ bridal procession these several contentions appeared to be justified. According to the cynical Marquis de St. Valier the sole difficulty was to properly appreciate the several parts of the mysterious whole; a scurrility which set men picking at the years with the snarling hunger of dogs about a heap of bones.

It is certain that, had he been asked, Fouquet, now cooling his toes in prison, would have agreed with the Marquis. Poor discredited Finance Minister! He had somehow failed to placate, to blindfold and mislead one of the secret genii of those secret years. Jean Baptiste Colbert, with his cold blood and clear head and outrageous passion for work, was the man of mystery whose talents he had foolishly despised.

But there it was. The draper’s son, a creature so inhuman he scowled upon gallantries, despised amusements and worked like an ox sixteen hours out of twenty-four, had assumed the robes of office. Whilst Fouquet, idol of beautiful women, foremost host in France, and to boot a gentleman, sat in a dingy fortress for no better cause than a little scrambled finances! To think of it was enough to make one’s head ache.

And there was more than headache in high places. Not content to disclose thefts and misappropriations—not to mention his easing luckless financiers of something like eighty-five million livres the very first year—Colbert must immediately set his mind to introducing order into every branch of the financial system. Worse, true to his tradesman’s instincts, the unromantic creature began pouring good securities into the provinces, supplying moneys to manufacturers, hiring foreign artisans, to whom he offered prizes forsooth; and organizing squads of engineers to the ends of building roads, perfecting inland waterways and such-like nonsense ostensibly for the glory of France.

But, if there were those who wept a lost paradise, at least two high-hearts perceived on the horizon signs of a new heaven. The King, firmly established in his Divine Rights, was already dreaming of those palaces destined to commemorate the ultimate in human vanity and pride, and to set a costly fad for little kinglets—to say nothing of providing controversy for artisans and architects and death by scores to much better dead workmen. Monumental labours launched, regardless of cost, to properly impress that far from impressionable lady, Françoise-Athenais de Mortemart, Marquise de Montespan. High-hearted Louis was set on his palaces, sure of them in fact. Colbert, with his everlasting schemes, would see to that. For which reason His Majesty agreed to the reduction of the Taille; curtailed the farming of taxes and demanded an account of every sou spent in public or private enterprise. Montespan, no less high-hearted, saw herself in possession of the Taboret, actually sitting while duchesses stood and princesses of the blood hobnobbed before her!

So much for the brave and the beautiful. There were others, ostensibly of the elect, who entertained something of Fouquet’s mournful opinion of the seven sacred years. The Queen, whose pathetic joy in a complete surrender to the Most Christian King and handsomest prince in Europe was still a matter of gossip, sat now at her embroidery with nothing better to think of than a brown boar on a green field pursued by a red knight. She had already completed sixteen huntsmen, four cardinals, two queens, and a host of blue and yellow pages. Which, despite a hundred tapers, may have been the reason for the lacklustre look of her eyes once so frank and bright. At her elbow stood a dish of sweets, to which the Queen helped herself in monotonous fashion, jabbing her needle now in a bon-bon, now a red knight.

Suddenly the solemn quiet of her chamber was riven by a sob, half laughter, undignified and foolish. Marie Thérèse looked up in mild astonishment. She had thought herself alone, as she liked to be, her women playing cards in the anteroom. Gentle though she was, a frown gathered on her smooth brows when she recognized the intruder. But almost at once a generous pity erased the frown. Poor Duchess, as sadly neglected as herself. Fitting needle to canvas she said kindly: “Madame, if you are ill, you have my permission to retire.”

Louise de la Vallière, blonde like the Queen, almost as ineffectual, unselfish and gentle, replied humbly: “Your Majesty, I am not the least unwell. I am merely amused.” In proof of which she fell to laughing at a pitch that astonished the Queen. Thoroughly ashamed, shocked into her natural meekness, De la Vallière bowed her head upon the window-sill, at which she knelt half hidden by velvet curtains, and wept soundlessly.

The Queen was undecided. The soul of kindness, she was moved to speak some commonplace, but on second thought refrained. After all, there was balm in these tears; poetic justice not often realized. It was agreeable, though doubtless quite unchristian, to reflect that at what once she herself had wept, the author of those tears was now experiencing in turn and before her eyes. But the poor young Queen was as futile in resentment as in love and, besides, she remembered with pardonable pride that the King was irresistible.

Moreover, this Duchess who wept at her window had on no occasion been guilty of that insolence and insupportable pride so quickly marked in other ladies upon whom the King’s fancy lingered. So now as one, herself starving, may look with some degree of resignation upon another in whom the pangs are fresher, Marie Thérèse considered De la Vallière. That the Duchess should weep at being cruelly hectored and plagued by La Montespan and ignored by the King was comprehensible. But why laughter? And she was laughing again—the poor lady was undoubtedly off her head.

Never very light upon her feet, the Queen left her comfortable couch with reluctance but driven to it by curiosity. For, if the Duchess was not actually touched in mind, something unusual must be happening in the courtyard below.

Madame de la Vallière recovered herself at the Queen’s approach, implored her pardon, dubbed herself a most ungrateful sinner, and then, astonishing in one habitually temperate, jerked the curtains back with an angry gesture. “There you are, madame, could anything be more touching? The Marquis de Montespan drives up in a mourning coach . . . to receive condolence of His Majesty!”

Marie Thérèse glanced into the street, more to save the poor Duchess from humiliation than anything else. What would the Marquis, whose torment was not a wife deceased but a wife too lustily alive, want with a mourning coach? She looked, and stood transfixed. It was true. A mourning coach, muffled in sable crêpe and bearing the arms of the De Montespan, was there; and, beside the coach, a gentleman also attired in black, seated on a black horse, with black plumes that waved lugubriously in the damp air.

Neither of the quickest wit nor keen perception, Marie Thérèse reacted swiftly now. Recoiling a step and clutching the window-hangings, she cried with agitation: “This is scandalous! There are heads at every window.”

Heads there were, to be sure, bobbing and craning; giddy curls and stiff perukes intermingled scandalously. The two women lost sight of their respective stations; the Queen made place for the Duchess, who in turn forgot she had not always been Her Majesty’s comforter, and cried, pointing to the saturnine horseman: “What dangerous impertinence, madame. He affects boundless grief. He puts the wags into spasms of laughter. Oh madame, what a wretch! Was ever solemnity more precious?”

Marie Thérèse’s poor eyes, dulled with weeping, long hours at embroidery, and patient pouring over prayers, shone suddenly with lively animation. “Who is he?” she inquired. “I perceive that he is a gentleman, graceful, and not lacking in courage to support buffoonery so well, but cannot place him!”

Madame de la Vallière, engrossed with her own thoughts, felt no surprise at the Queen’s interest. “Indeed, I know him despite his crêpe!” she exclaimed. “So will all the rest. He is the Marquis de St. Valier who distinguished himself in the last war and, if gossip may be trusted, performed spectacular feats under Condé while still a boy. Never content for long, he must always be losing himself in some fresh adventure, rushing off to admire Vauban’s latest fortification, fighting brigands in the hills or wandering through the provinces. The ladies are in despair about him.”

The Duchess broke off. A door had flung open and out stepped a gentleman whose fury was a thing of wonder. It seemed to bear him up as on wings, to float him along as on a gale, and the looks he levelled at the windows were forked lightning. As he stepped into the waiting coach the fiery gentleman (none other than the Marquis de Montespan himself) made some hurried remark to Monsieur de St. Valier, his sole supporter in this unique revenge, who, to the Queen’s intense delight, responded by sweeping off his hat and, thus declared before the world of gossipers and peepers, followed the carriage away at a slow trot. Marie Thérèse had liked the rashness of it, the near insolence of his attitude toward the idlers at the windows. But then the enormity of the escapade dawned upon her. “It will occasion the greatest mirth! La Montespan will be laughed at.” The slow voice took fire; the stout little apathetic Queen grew prophetic: “The whole Court will rock with amusement, madame. And what wonder? A boorish husband, jealous of his wife’s favour, declares her dead before the world! Once dead, the difficulties of husband and lover cease—the deserted dead automatically becomes a charge upon the State—what a sensible solution! Yet I should not wonder if the King failed to perceive the genius of it. Indeed, I am certain His Majesty will miss the point entirely and be much annoyed.”

There were others of like mind with the Queen. Notably the secretive Colbert, who knew of everything that transpired, although he was rarely seen to quit his cabinet. Nor had he the slightest interest in the personalities that absorbed so much of the attention of the Court. It was merely in their relation to cash that the King’s gallantries concerned him: they were costly peccadilloes and, therefore, must be watched. For the luckless Marquis de Montespan he had small regard; a haughty, overbearing nobleman, who hugged with jealous pride his feudal rights and made no secret of his displeasure that offices of trust were confided to the bourgeoisie. But, although Colbert lost no sleep over Monsieur de Montespan’s unconcealed dislike of such men as himself, he realized that the Marquis had powerful friends afield, and hence kept posted on all his domestic wars, having long ago reached the conclusion that one day the hot-headed noble would fly into open revolt against the Royal poacher on his preserves.

So active were Colbert’s spies that not only was he prepared for Monsieur de Montespan’s impudent gesture when it transpired, but had his mind made up on what course to pursue when the black coach appeared in the courtyard. Which may be said to explain how it came about that within an hour after her brother had assisted the angry husband in his dangerous jest, the Comtesse la Barre came to be confronted by a solemn bumpkin who inquired where Monsieur de St. Valier might be found, for the Finance Minister had demanded an immediate interview.

The Countess had more spirit than sense. She was not in the habit of spying upon her brother, said she, nor obliged to render an account of his activities and habits to anyone. A commonplace fact she wished to have represented to Monsieur Colbert for his future edification. “Very well, madame,” the messenger replied with an air of genial patience, and seated himself on a chest nearby.

“Have the goodness to explain the meaning of this?” demanded the Countess frigidly, speculating upon the possible effect of having him thrown out.

“But certainly,” replied the rascal, “that is simple. I shall not trouble madame. I shall wait until Monsieur le Marquis returns.”

Whereupon a voice, with a hint of laughter in it, called out pleasantly from the room beyond: “Where the mischief did I lay my snuff-box? My dear Élise——” The curtains parted and the culprit stood revealed. But what a culprit! With an elegance that disregarded extremes the Marquis de St. Valier managed by grace of personality to lend dignity and charm to the foppish fashions of the times. He looked exactly what he was, a gentleman. The messenger sprang to his feet. “Monsieur de St. Valier, I presume?” The Marquis raised a cynical eyebrow and the man flushed. “Monsieur, I have the honour to inform you that Monsieur Colbert commands your presence immediately.” He finished hurriedly, wishing himself away from the searchlight of the dark eyes fixed upon him.

“Ah—you have the honour?” Monsieur le Marquis drawled softly, smiling upon the messenger, to his intense discomfort.

“A carriage waits outside, monsieur,” the man spoke nervously. “Everything has been arranged with the utmost care and discretion.”

The Countess could restrain herself no longer. “Discretion! It sounds more like a trap. This is Montespan’s doing. Eugène, I forbid you to go—that terrible woman would stoop to anything.”

De St. Valier laughed, and picking up a grey cloak from a settee by the window, said quietly: “Élise, there is not the slightest cause for alarm. Colbert is much too skilful for that. My dear, I shall be back sooner than you think; which, alas, excludes all hope of adventure.”

But of that he was less sure when at the end of a circuitous drive he found himself in a musty room in a dingy back-street tavern, where the Finance Minister, scowling with impatience, was waiting for him. They eyed each other in silence. Colbert, no mean judge of men, was agreeably surprised. Here was a man to appreciate directness and common sense; a gentleman who had not succumbed to the flattery of fools, nor one to be purchased—a soldier who could play the dandy and still remain a man. Colbert detested waste of any kind. He came at once to his problem. “Monsieur le Marquis, it will not surprise you to hear that a lettre de cachet has been posted after your friend, Monsieur de Montespan, and that His Majesty has been urgently advised to extend the same justice to yourself.”

“Unfortunately, one outgrows surprise,” the Marquis responded laconically. “Just what am I to understand by your remarks, Monsieur Colbert?”

“This: we will assume I know nothing of De Montespan’s supporter. Finance, not intrigue, is my business, although the two are sometimes associated. . . . Monsieur le Marquis, I must find a secret agent to serve His Majesty in the south.”

Monsieur de St. Valier seemed quite unaffected, but when he spoke Colbert experienced the same swift uneasiness his messenger had suffered earlier in the day.

“I am not so sure I prefer being jailed as a spy, Monsieur Colbert. Besides, I have a ridiculous regard for the south. It is my country.”

“Exactly.” Colbert was curt. “Monsieur le Marquis’ affection for the south is well known; his frequent disappearances in quest of adventure are also common knowledge. That being so, monsieur, a visit to the provinces at this time should occasion no surprise. The service I require is concerned with municipal affairs. It requires judgment, subtlety, and, in the jargon of poets, love of country. It is hardly necessary to add that a financial bait was never thought of. More likely your efforts will leave you much the poorer, Monsieur le Marquis, though I trust it shall have restored you to Royal favour.”

Monsieur de St. Valier laughed. “I perceive that human conceit is not strange to you, Monsieur Colbert, whatever may be said of the softer passions. Good. That disposes of the personal element, always such a nuisance. Briefly, your excellent idea is this: I am to leave, let us say, a bit summarily, and, while in unofficial, though actual exile, I am to busy myself with the problems of commerce in Charante, La Vendeé, and possibly Brittany, wherein Monsieur Colbert has shown such interest of late? Permit me to comment upon your astuteness, monsieur. I doubt whether my worst enemies would believe that a De St. Valier would save his neck by backstair meddling in trade!”

Colbert grunted. “You anticipate, Monsieur le Marquis. Meddling in trade may be the noble sport of to-morrow. But I repeat you anticipate. What I require is a conscientious report concerning the operations of a shipping syndicate whose record seems excellent but whose actions for the past months have aroused my suspicions. Also I have reasons to suspect smuggling on a prodigious scale. Then, too, the traders of La Rochelle, Nantes, and St. Malo seem slow to grasp the benefits of the Code Marine and the Inscription Maritime; if not actually hostile, they are largely indifferent. Privateers, carrying letters of marque, continue to ignore the code and behave like pirates, without losing the respect of their backers. To complicate matters, the quarrels between captains of ships of war and our Admiralty officials continue as fierce as ever. With captains of the line behaving like despots, it is small wonder privateers cling to their Judgments of Oleron and stubborn independence.”

The Marquis took out his snuff-box. Nothing could have surpassed his air of genteel boredom. But the Minister of Finance, of Marine, and a dozen untabulated offices, was not easily deceived. He continued unperturbed: “So much for the code, a copy of which will be handed you. We come now to my projects at Rochefort. Monsieur le Marquis, as you have guessed, it is my desire that France be made supreme upon the seas. And since commerce is the source of wealth and wealth the nerves of war, it behooves us to make the pursuit of commerce reasonably safe and protect it by recognized laws. In other words, a merchant marine to hold its own upon the highways of ocean traffic must have a capable navy at its back. Nor would I wish to see again the spectacle of a king of France forced to beg ships of foreign powers and parsimonious individuals to fight his marine battles.

“Hence the naval academy at Rochefort and the Inscription Maritime. There must be an end to the outrageous pressgang practice and a regular method of recruiting instituted in its place. The Inscription provides that qualified persons be obliged to serve one year in four in the Royal Navy between the ages of twenty and sixty, in recompense for which they shall receive an old-age pension. Even the dullest should find no difficulty in realizing how such a procedure would improve His Majesty’s navy and at the same time benefit his maritime subjects.

“So far that phase of it has not been sufficiently stressed. It must be represented to the seafaring people that they have everything to gain and little to lose. Their calling of necessity subjects them to the constant threat of death, and their families thereupon to the bitter bread of charity. By complying with the Inscription, holding their services at the disposal of the State when need arises, the State in turn guarantees to its sailors a pension on their becoming disabled or reaching the age of fifty, and, in the case of death, protection for their widows and children. To this end every man and boy employed in navigation, in long sea or coasting voyages, must enrol in the Inscription Maritime and make their fixed subscription to the Hospital and Pensioner Fund.

“To make everything clear between us, Monsieur le Marquis, it is best that I should confess to having suffered considerable opposition in respect to these matters. The popular idea still inclines to the belief that power and glory depend upon a gold-braided army. But time will show that Richelieu, in building maritime arsenals, providing a budget for the construction of ships, and the expending of vast sums upon the harbour of Brest and Toulon, knew better and foresaw the future needs of his country.

“It required no deep thought on my part to see that Rochefort, situated midway between Brest and Bordeaux, would make an ideal naval base. In addition to its situation, my engineers informed me that the Charante offers roadsteads of a depth that never varies; the river is entered more easily than any other in France. To Rochefort from the sea no obstacle intervenes—no natural obstacle, I should say. And thereby hangs our tale, more need not be said; for it must be patent that my reasons for seeking this interview have to do with various irregularities of seemingly trifling importance, but none the less of far-reaching effects if allowed to continue, and my dire need of someone sufficiently removed from the problem itself to be disinterested in all but its judicial adjustment. What this may entail, none can foresee. There may be nothing to remedy, no risk nor danger, and there may be much.”

Monsieur de St. Valier got to his feet, he seemed neither impressed nor affected; but Colbert, whose cold eyes missed nothing, saw that his hand had unconsciously sought the hilt of his sword. “Monsieur Colbert,” De St. Valier’s voice was cold, “I shall be ready to leave within the hour. To whom are my letters to be confided?”

Colbert crossed to the door and bawled into the passage for his servant. The man came running. The Finance Minister spoke rapidly in undertones impossible to follow. Monsieur de St. Valier was amused. Finance, not intrigue, was Colbert’s talent! Oh well, what genius knows itself? Turning about, the Minister met the Marquis’ steady dark eyes, in which burned flames of poisonous laughter. Plague on those aristocrats in whom the centuries had bred a humour mischievous as a sabre thrust! Thus his angry thoughts. But he said: “Monsieur, you will have no difficulty if you follow the instructions set forth in the papers which will be delivered into your hands when you leave Paris. Now for your question. An attorney, Gustave Freslon by name, living on his estate midway between La Rochelle and Rochefort, will receive your communications, Monsieur le Marquis. You will find him efficient, discreet, provided with every facility and at the head of a capable staff. Monsieur Freslon has served me well in the past. Monsieur le Marquis, I wish you a successful journey.”

Mademoiselle Lalage Gremion looked out the window. There was little to see. Rain in silver torrents made of everything a grotesque mockery. The trees appeared to weep and their branches were as formless, shivering tentacles brushing to and fro. The high stone wall, over which in bright weather she could look to the broad river on its way to the sea, had the appearance of an ill-shaped ridge blocking the way to freedom. Everything shivered, sighed, and dripped with chilling rain.

Mademoiselle watched this silver deluge with impatience. Her face, perfectly chiselled of soft pink and white flesh, far from being angelic was astonishingly petulant and stormy. From time to time she glanced over her shoulder into the shadowy comfort behind her towards a huge fireplace before which an old man sat prodding the logs and muttering to himself.

“It is only what we should expect,” the girl flung out for the tenth time. “Bad weather fascinates him—he is more a duck every day. Not content to smell of mackerel and spice and a hundred thousand evils when at sea, he must rush about the marshes in the beastliest weather to catch a death of fever! Was ever such a parent? An hundred thousand foundlings could not have fared worse—and this my birthday!”

The old man shook his head. “Now, Mademoiselle Lalage, an hundred thousand . . .”

“Oh, hush!” she interrupted him, pulling a dismal face and walking towards him with short, mincing steps, and hands behind her in perfect imitation of the village curé. “Oh, hush, I hear wheels; the sinner returns eventually. We must be merciful but just. My good Jean, see to the roast, but no hot wine as yet. An hundred thousand anxieties cannot be wiped out with one stamp of the sea-boots and a broad grin.” In a twinkling her mocking mood changed to rapture. She spun about the room clapping her hands and singing like a child. “It is! It is! Nothing in the world but a rusty old carriage could make such a clatter. Just listen; it groans, it grates, it cries and curses at our good strong stones. It has a gusty temper, that carriage, like my sweetest Papa.”

Old Jean had risen. He nodded. “A coach sure enough; but not Monsieur Gremion’s. If you leave off imagining and listen, the hoofbeats prove it; there are four horses, mademoiselle. Some fine fellow has taken the wrong fork. So! They have stopped. They have discovered the error.”

Lalage was back at the window. The scene was more desolate than ever, for darkness, so swift descending at this time of year, had made of what was formerly a moving winding-sheet of silver-grey, an opaque mystery. Her whimsical mood changed to concern. Darting to a long elaborately carved buffet, she snatched up a lighted candle in a high silver holder and set it in the window. “There, that speaks for a friendly house. Besides, poor Papa, with his nose in his snuff-box, his thoughts in the Indies, and the saints know what in his stomach, may need a lodestar this terrible night.”

But Papa Gremion had not half the need of a star that windy night as the two strangers confronted at this very moment by two wretched vexations: a coachman, much the worse for the ale he had imbibed at Rochefort Inn, and a carriage wheel come to grief on the good strong stones of Monsieur Gremion’s stern acres. Having assured himself of this, the Marquis de St. Valier addressed his sister: “Well, we seem to have arrived somewhere or other. I might say I am sure of it. What is more, we have broken a wheel, and the coachman, sensible fellow, is fast asleep.”

“Eugène, how can you jest? Has not your jesting cost enough? Have the goodness to suggest something, for I shiver from head to heel.”

His shrug, though eloquent, was lost upon the darkness; his humility, though unusual, was lost upon the angry woman. “Poor Élise, I should not have permitted you to come. But here we are, my dear, and if it were not for the beastly wet I should suggest we take lesson of the coachman.”

“You are impossible! You always were—but should that affect my duty? Did I not promise our mother to watch over you? Fie, what horrible weather, what abominable country!”

His laughter, very rare, rang out spontaneously. “And what abominable tenacity. I am not exactly a little boy any longer to require such tireless watching. . . . Well, speak of paradise—as I live that ugly wall before us offers sanctuary. Look up, Élise, and see for yourself how justly our poets sing the praises of felicity. Not there, my dear, up, straight up! Yes, I refer to the candle.

“You exasperate me. I perish of cold and you discover a house and stand there prattling of candles. Why do you not wake that brutish fellow and send him to seek lodgings?”

“Wake him we shall,” he agreed, suiting action to word by prodding the hunched-up figure with his cane. “Ho, there, my man. ’Tis a pity, but wake you must. Wake! Wake—yes, I said wake!”

“Pardon, pardon! I must have nodded. God save me, perhaps I slept.”

“Perhaps you did,” the Marquis agreed. “And now perhaps you will remain awake long enough to proceed up that hill and make known to whoever lives in the house behind this abominable wall that two very wet, very cold, and very hungry travellers ask lodging for the night.”

“I am to ask, monsieur? These may be timid, unfriendly folk . . . to command, monsieur, may be necessary.”

“So it seems,” Monsieur de St. Valier cut him short. “Be off and do my bidding. Take one of the lanterns and save us the additional bother of a broken head.”

“I refuse to wait,” Madame informed her brother. “That oaf may never reach the house. Besides, fool or not, he spoke the truth. Why ask? Are we not entitled to consideration on the borders of our own estates? Or have you forgotten De St. Valier meant something when Capet was less than a name?”

He helped her down, tucked her damp cloak close about her and her arm through his. “Knowing me so well, how can you forget how easily I forget? Now, now, don’t jerk. The candle in this other lantern is a feeble affair, and the doughtiness of our ancestors will not keep us from slipping in the mud.”

Meanwhile the coachman was scrambling up the winding road which by now was almost a creek-bed, the more treacherous for occasional stones upthrust like dark heads of water monsters. Wind and wet soon swept the fumes from his brain, and alert once more he peered to right and left. Scrub, boulder, and clumps of tall trees were to the one hand, the high stone wall breasting a considerable hill on the other. Nowhere could he see a gate or entrance. A queer, inaccessible place this; a robber’s stronghold doubtless, or the ruins of some feudal castle. Well, it was time! Coming to a sharp turn he suddenly perceived that the flank of the hill fell sharply away, giving place to rolling greens, and midway arose a pretentious arch over a wide, iron-barred gate. A bell with cord attached projected over the side. The coachman lengthened his stride, muttering nervously to bolster up his courage, for now he ran between two evils, the which he feared more he could not say—the lord behind or the lord before.

Mademoiselle Gremion first heard the clamour, for Jean had descended to the back kitchen for fuel, and Maria, the housekeeper, was ill in her bed at the far wing of the house. Lalage dashed into the hall. “Jean, Jean, the bell is ringing. Do hurry. No, no, put on your oilskin first. Well, hear them! An hundred thousand imps could not be more impatient. If beggars, let them shelter in the carriage sheds; if soldiers, in the front kitchen; if a merchant, bring him to me; and if he have anything new and pretty, may the saints bless him.”

The bell clamoured furiously. And fury woke in Jean to hear it. He struck the gate with his stick but made no move to open. “What do you want,” he shouted, “and who the devil are you?”

“What do you think I want?” shrilled the coachman, recognizing a worthy equal. “And if you must know, I am a gentleman’s gentleman, which I wager is more than you can say. Monsieur and his lady desire shelter for the night.”

Jean drew back a panel, and holding high his lantern peered out. The rain had somewhat abated and a young moon was attempting to light the gloomy heavens. In this grey light the figure of the coachman drooped dejectedly, and the lantern in his hand showed him wet and unarmed. A pace behind, bent in the wind and guided by a wisp of light, came two others; a tall man and, as the wretch had said, a woman, her ridiculous skirts impeding every step. Jean unfastened the gate. “Enter, enter, and may you roast, my gentleman’s gentleman, if any of this is lies.”

A little later the Marquis de St. Valier, with his sister dragging upon his arm, approached the gate. Jean, his lantern held high, only needed a glance to be reassured. “Monsieur, madame, enter, if you please, my mistress bids you welcome. Your man, monsieur, can bring up the horses. There is room and fodder in plenty.”

“What a blessing,” sighed the Countess, “that a woman welcomes us—the place has the look of a prison.”

But the welcome was not strictly what she foresaw. No merchant’s dame waited to kowtow before her. But the warmth and comfort of a long wainscoted room, glowing with yellow candlelight, emanated a cheerful welcome and breathed of cheerful company. The mistress, more accustomed to beggars, pedlars, and needy peasants than actual visitors, had gone to her room until Jean should announce the particulars or some sound betray the identity of the caller.

Ah, a merchant, thought she, hearing Jean usher someone into the living-room. What luck. Now Papa should be made to pay for his dalliance at La Rochelle. She had a good mind to buy a dress length for each of the miller’s daughters; poor things, the six of them were frights and mountains of flesh. Oh, Papa should pay dearly for forgetting to come home in time for her birthday. After Jean had roasted a young pig, too, not to mention the cake she herself had made with only an occasional hint from Maria. Fifty yards of good red cloth was not too much of a penalty!

Laughing to herself, Lalage skipped to the top of the stairs and leaning over the banister called down gaily: “Monsieur, do your worst. I desire to be tempted to the limits.” Ignoring Jean’s signs from the doorway, for was he not always scolding her for extravagance, she came down the stairs so lightly and swiftly she seemed to float and never was grace more artless. “Oh, grimace as you will,” she flung at poor Jean, “I shall get what I like; do as I like, and, to begin with, bring on the fatted pig, since Papa comes not to dine with me, this—— Oh, my saints!” she fell back against the banister and clung there, overcome with confusion, her eyes golden moons of astonishment.

What wonder. There in her father’s old-fashioned hall stood a lady of consequence. The merest glance proved that; a lady severe and haughty despite mud-spattered, disarranged appearance, and severely disapproving such levity in another of her sex. This was bad enough, as waves of humiliation attested, and yet nothing compared to what she experienced on meeting the amused eyes of the lady’s companion.

The gentleman spoke, and Lalage understood what a wilderness savage she was; what savages she had lived amongst, and how cruel it was to be seen at one’s worst by persons superior to circumstance. For never, never, could she have held her head high as a queen’s with mud oozing out of her slippers and her bonnet on backwards as did this stern lady staring at her with perfect composure. Nor could she have made her voice sound so like a meandering stream under warm summer skies as did the gentleman bowing before her.

“Mademoiselle, it is a pity your expectations are not realized. A thousand pities more to cause you trouble. But we must ask the hospitality of your charming house. Mademoiselle, Eugène Marigny,” he turned as to include with a smile his disgruntled sister, who saw no reason for evasion, “and, madame, your grateful guests, so please you.”

Could Lalage only have seen herself, the marvel had consoled her. To be sure she was pink with confusion, and quite shaking in her little shoes, but her glowing copper head was proudly set, and the imp, never long-sleeping, in her gold-flecked eyes would out unbidden. She curtsied. “Monsieur, an hundred thousand pardons. I mistook you for a pedlar,” she answered sweetly, and, deaf to Jean’s violent fit of coughing, turned to the lady. “Madame, we are wild here, but harmless. Be so kind as to seat yourself by the fire. Jean, take madame’s cloak and monsieur’s, if it please them.”

The old man was quick to obey, and despite her chilling demeanour the Countess was grateful for the fire, for the dry slippers Lalage sent down to her, and the warm wraps, and more grateful still when she detected the appetizing odours of Jean’s cooking floating up the dark stair-shaft at her back. She would have liked to express this gratitude but Lalage had disappeared. Monsieur, on the other hand, was not so fretted with his duty, but he would have liked to see more of this elfin hostess no bigger than a doll and abrim with innocent impertinence. Moreover, he was curious about the house. A glance sufficed to prove that its owner was a man of vast fortune. There was no vulgar display of wealth such as one found in the houses of the battening bourgeoisie; the silver plate gleaming on the dark rosewood buffet would not have shamed a duke, and a chest of ancient Italian design which stood beneath one of the windows would have fetched a tidy sum. The hangings were of rich velvet, the few ornaments of silver, rare ivory, heavy brass, the huge table and chairs were of solid mahogany.

A mysterious household, for in spite of these signs of wealth and the size of the house, Jean was the only servant in evidence. But Jean was apparently a man of parts. He entered now from those dark back-stairs bearing a tray of steaming dishes, an unmistakable air of pride about him. His apologies were none the less elaborate—he was deeply mortified to inflict upon visitors the products of so simple a cuisine, but the housekeeper, an excellent cook, was ill. And then he added: “Mademoiselle bids me say she hopes our country fare will not be too unpalatable. The wine is honest Burgundy and of decent age. If monsieur desires anything more, there is a gong by the fireplace. Also, when madame wishes to retire she has but to summon me and I will point out the rooms. If I may say so, monsieur, everything possible has been attended to: the horses are stabled; your man is below, and in the morning will fetch a wheelwright from Rochefort to mend the damage to monsieur’s coach. Mademoiselle hopes this will be satisfactory.”

“Quite satisfactory,” De St. Valier assured him drily.

“Most kind and generous,” supplemented the Countess, her eyes lighting at sight of the richly appointed table, with its steaming dishes, hot white rolls, and tempting fruits.

“Mademoiselle will not join us?” the Marquis asked politely.

Jean shook his head. “Mademoiselle desires to be excused. To-morrow is a busy day at Rockpoint House.”

Monsieur, seating his sister, raised an eloquent eyebrow. Jean amended hastily: “It is unnecessary, no doubt, monsieur; but mademoiselle thinks it her duty to rise at dawn every second Friday to distribute bread to the poor. . . . Monsieur will please sound the gong when he needs me.”

“I declare it is as weird as a child’s tale,” the Countess smiled at her brother now carving a pheasant. “These people have the good sense to be hospitable without effusion. The little savage was quick to perceive her disadvantage in gentle company. But did you notice the necklace she wore—genuine jade? These tradesmen dress their daughters like princesses. You may shrug, but I tell you the spirit of our regime died with the Fronde. I am sometimes tempted to think that we of the noblesse have grown too careless of our obligations. We neither act nor impress. . . .”

“The wine is excellent,” said monsieur soothingly, holding his glass up to the light. “And I must confess I had no thought for the jade—I speak of the stone, naturally. Did you notice what eyes she has? One might stretch a point and call them golden.”

“Fie, stretch another and come to reason! Would it be possible to visit the Rainvilles on our way to St. Valier? Madame Rainville wrote me a short while back, and I had half promised to introduce Angeline to the pleasures of Paris. It would be foolish to confide to letters the reason for our sudden change of residence.”

“Angeline is the pig-tailed nightmare who used to insist on dancing with me whenever I came home from military school? I remember she had lips slightly moist like those of a suckling baby and very sharp teeth. For all my sword and swagger I was always terribly afraid of her. So she wants to go to Paris to eat up the King’s men?”

The Countess was not amused. “Your cynicism is in bad taste. The Rainvilles are persons of consequence. Their poverty is a stark memorial to the unselfishness of their devotion to a lost cause. Madame Rainville is right in wishing to introduce Angeline into proper society. Angeline has developed into a dignified, handsome girl.”

The Marquis stifled a yawn, took out his snuff-box, sniffed at the contents, and made a wry face. “What a nasty fad. How the human nose can abide it is a mystery. But I see you nod; it is time I struck the gong to fetch our worthy ancient. About the Rainville—why should you not go, my dear Élise—unfortunately I must join Monsieur Freslon.”

Madame spoke sharply. “Eugène, you must make an effort to come; not to do so would be an affront.”

Leaning against the mantle, the brass hammer of the gong in his hand, he smiled at her. The graceful maddening creature! There was no divining what he might do, but how lovable he was. Élise sighed. How impossible and precious he always had been. He had laughed when their father, in obedience to Holy Scripture, had inflicted the rod, and wept when a dirty little peasant presented him with a handful of wild flowers on his birthday.

The good priest who had undertaken to instruct the little Eugène at Château de St. Valier, gave up in despair; not that the child was stupid, but too full of alarming wisdom. The old Marquis, at that time deep in the intrigues of the Fronde, promptly dispatched the little Eugène to a military school. His record there was little better. What he should have learned he omitted; what was forbidden he devoured. At twelve he ran away and joined the army of the Opposition on the eve of its defeat at Rhetel. At fifteen he was cited for bravery by Turenne, who by then was once more reconciled to young King Louis and was leading the forces which routed the armies of Messieurs La Barre and De St. Valier the elder. When Eugène had learned that his father and Monsieur la Barre had both fallen in that drive he was overcome with youthful remorse, presented his sword to Turenne, and fled back to La Vendée to bury himself from the world. But not for long. He appeared again, reinstated himself in the army; this time serving Condé and, eventually, to Élise’s great relief, won the Royal favour.

But here he was in disgrace once more, and laughing up his sleeve about it. She longed to shake him but instead, meeting his eyes, shrugged helplessly. He crossed to her side, and for a moment his hand rested upon her thin shoulder. “Of course I will come, Élise. But I will not—absolutely I will not—be gobbled up by Mademoiselle Rainville!”

Monsieur de St. Valier went to sleep with a clear conscience, in an excellent bed, and resolved to rise with the dawn. Wake he did as the first rays of sunlight streamed into the room. His first reaction, however, was far from happy. Why the mischief had he left the curtains wide open? He felt stiff and cross and far from rested. Then he remembered; weariness fled and he began dressing with eager haste and a sense of gratitude to the coachman for having salvaged his bags from the water-soaked carriage.

He stole out of the quiet house softly and gazed about him with lively curiosity. What a contrast to the night before. In place of gloomy stretches of impenetrable shadow he saw gentle sloping greens, ranks of fine trees, and at the top of the hill in the midst of a rock garden a little white pavilion: a sort of overgrown doll’s house with a semicircular open court before it. But lovely and strange though this garden hidden in a wilderness was, what really captured and held him spellbound was the sight of Mademoiselle Lalage hurrying out from the back of the house. What would De Montespan not do for such hair, thought monsieur, and was instantly ashamed of the comparison. To think of this radiant child, dancing out to meet the morning with sunlight on her head, and the Royal favourite in the same breath offended his sense of spiritual values.

Mademoiselle, on closer scrutiny, appeared to be highly irritated. He decided to stay where he was. She paused beside a lilac tree, stamped her little foot, and cried: “Jean, have you ducked into the bean-pot? I could die with impatience! You know how the poor things hate waiting.”

“Yes, yes,” the old man’s voice sounded from below. “They come early enough, the wretches. But consider, bread takes its time and Maria is in a peeve this morning. They will not be hurried, bread nor baker. Stubborn as yourself they are. And, if this keeps up, we will be begging ourselves.”

Lalage wrinkled her nose at the lilac tree, swooped down upon one small shoe and retied a loose ribbon. “Wicked old grouch, bring up the black bread; that at least is done, and the cabbages we bought from that blind peasant last week. Don’t forget to bring the bag of clothes—and yes, tell Maria I shall dress her poor leg myself.”

“What of the fine folk above stairs?” demanded quarrelsome Jean. “What is to be said if I am late for them? And late I must be, fiddling around with women’s work. Foolish, I call it, going short-handed because an old wench mislikes a young one in her kitchen. Yes, what of the fine folk used to having six or seven minions to stir a mess of porridge?”

“Madame can perfect her sniff. Which, praise Heaven, will please her mightily. Now come, will you? My poor friends worry me. What do I care for those two. They may have died from shame for sleeping in common beds under a common roof and need no breakfast.”

Lalage turned and ran up the green slope to her garden but did not go directly to the small pavilion. She crossed to the stone wall and opened a narrow gate that was just visible through a tangle of vines and in trooped the wildest-looking crowd of human beings Monsieur le Marquis remembered ever to have seen.

For a moment he feared for her safety. But it was evident she knew exactly how to put them in order, and was soon leading them in decent ranks toward the white pavilion. She made them sit down in the little court and herself perched on the pavilion steps. Jean was now to be seen trudging up the slope pushing a cart laden with supplies. Monsieur de St. Valier decided to get a better view of the strange proceedings. By taking advantage of the shelter afforded by the trees which lined the carriage drive, he reached the top of the slope unseen, and was within hearing of what went on.

Mademoiselle was speaking to a boy who crouched at her feet. A boy so dirty his complexion was not merely a matter of conjecture but an abiding mystery. His hair was fiery red and the eyes he raised timidly were blue as seawater.

“So he beat you again, did he?” she was saying hotly. “The fat coward! For what this time? Not a turnip, I hope, for you can get that here.”

“No, no, mademoiselle. I have eaten nothing these two weeks but what you gave me. I hid the bread in a hole in the woods and at night I cooked a meal as you showed me.”

“But he beat you, none the less; for what, then, the monster?”

“For singing,” said the child.

“For singing?”

“It made such gladness in me every time I thought of how you stopped your carriage to pick me up, mademoiselle, and tied my wounds—I had to sing. Monsieur said it made his head ache, and stopped the hens from laying.”

“Poor Hector,” sighed Lalage. “Well, if we must have pigs for overlords, merely because the devil is not ready for them, this you shall do: sing to the woods, Hector; the good trees will not object, and sing to me when we are alone. Now, sit beside me and help hand out the bread.”

Monsieur de St. Valier suffered a queer sensation at his heart-strings. The ragged creature, coated with the dirt of field and highway, crept forward, a light upon his face no words may describe, and seated himself on the lowest step with the exquisite humility one might render a saint. A kind of groan intended for sounds of appropriate gladness broke from the crowd and sent shivers of dismay through Monsieur de St. Valier. Lalage, however, proceeded calmly: “Now then, who is poorest here to-day?”

A woman with a child at her breast was shoved forward by two others. “This one, mademoiselle. She is not of us; not of Charante. She has nothing. Once she had a house with a door, a man who did not beat her, and children. The King’s men burned the house—there was a road to be cut so that the three queens might follow their lord—the house stood in the way. They had an ox, too, these people, but the King needed that. Her foolish husband cried that he would die without his beast. ‘Well, die then at once,’ the soldiers answered. And die he did. After that the woman gleaned a little in the fields and dug herself a hole for the winter. But it pleased God to send the plague so that her children sickened. When they had died everyone was afraid and drove her forth. There is none poorer in all Charante, mademoiselle.”

Here was a tale! Monsieur de St. Valier saw how still Little Mademoiselle listened. Would she weep, storm, bluster? Fly to platitudes like the virtuous or to scripture like the pious? Instead, after a little, she merely asked: “Have you ever eaten white bread, mother?”

“White bread—I?”

“And have you ever worn a linen shift white as the Madonna’s and a blue dress?”

Tears rolled down the weary grime-encrusted face. “Mademoiselle, they spoke the truth,” she whimpered, thinking herself mocked. “We had a house—and the King’s men came. . . .”

“But now I speak the truth also!” Lalage interrupted sharply. “You shall hunger no more in Charante. Go now into the house at my back and Jean will find you a linen shift and a woollen gown, and you shall eat white bread as sweet as the King’s. Jean! See to these things for me, you have the keys to my boxes,” she called over her shoulder.

Grumbling, Jean dragged the unbelieving, half-terrified woman into the house. Mademoiselle continued her session. Who had suffered loss? Who had an uncommon grievance? Who had accomplished some small marvel of efficiency? To each she gave some reward. To the most miserable a trifling luxury, to the thriftier a coin, and to everyone a loaf of black bread, a cabbage, and a leek. To the children she gave small white biscuits rolled in sugar, and laughed with delight to see their eyes grow big.

At last they had all departed, the poor woman, not of Charante, walking as one in a dream. All filed through the gate quietly and with astonishing orderliness; clearly the majority were not strangers to the place. Still as some finely wrought temple image, mademoiselle watched them go, thinking how like to withered leaves, winter-blown, they were in their fluttering rags and utter helplessness. The Marquis came forward: “Good morning, mademoiselle, your court sits early.”

She displayed not the slightest sign of the childish confusion which had overwhelmed her the night before. In fact, she took stock of him with the coolest of critical eyes and inquired politely: “Monsieur slept badly? What a pity. When an arduous road lies before!” Monsieur le Marquis had recourse to an eloquent eyebrow, and his most envied Court manner. Mademoiselle was not the least humbled but considerably incensed.

“It rejoices me, monsieur, that you should find us sufficiently interesting to be amusing for the moment,” she told him with spirit. “And it affords me additional pleasure to suggest that breakfast awaits you at the house.”

“Begging your pardon, I have not been amused,” the Marquis contradicted her calmly, as he seated himself on the step the red-headed boy had just vacated. “Mademoiselle, why do these people come to you? Where is their seigneur, or his intendant, that they should have to come here?”

Lalage set her dimpled elbows on the round hill of her little knees and, cupping her face in her hands, studied him a moment in silence. “Even the seigneurs of La Vendée are beginning to junket back and forth to the capital to dance attendance upon the King. Their people are no longer of importance except to furnish taxes, hence they are left to overseers picked by the devil,” she answered without hesitation and with asperity.

Monsieur de St. Valier experienced considerable difficulty in maintaining a becoming gravity. A predicament mademoiselle quickly perceived. For an instant her smouldering eyes gleamed mischievously and the curves of her mouth inclined upward. “You see how it is, monsieur. The devil does me a real service, he affords me amusement.” Her little nose wrinkled saucily. “You will concede how welcome that is, monsieur; why, then, should I not return in kind? But there! Jean beckons from the yard. Without doubt madame has arisen and waits you at table.”

His voice assumed its treacherous sweetness. “Madame is addicted to patience, while I am only now beginning to be amused. Your red-bird, for instance, to whom is he indebted for so many blows?”

Lalage jumped to her feet, her full green skirts filling like sails and making a soft frou-frou. She was, he thought, the strangest combination of dainty lovesomeness and spirited mischief. Such an incredibly little thing, too, he should have liked to put her in his pocket!

Her feelings were less cordial. She felt it her duty to remember that here was one of the gentlemen of whom she had heard little good and an immense amount of bad. Marie had pronounced a bitter judgment on all his kind; the good Sisters had warned her because she was pretty. Her father, whose knowledge was not confined to the sea, concurred in the judgment. Old Jean was even more sour. These warnings in mind, she took umbrage at his insistence. “Well, if you must know, monsieur, poor Hector belongs at St. Valier, but since the old Marquis’ death their people have been left to thieving overseers. The De St. Valier had at one time enormous estates—oh, ever so many châteaux and villages and forests: even now quite a few remain. So Hector has been driven from one to another like some wild beast of which the village stands in terror, although he is really a very bright boy and remarkably honest.”

But Monsieur de St. Valier had recovered his polished aloofness and exquisite boredom, which just permitted the polite rejoinder: “Mademoiselle, I have heard of the De St. Valier. Even in Paris they are considered insupportable asses.”

“Indeed!” Lalage was indignant, she stamped her foot. “Permit me to tell you, monsieur, and be so good as to pass it along in the capital, that bad as our seigneurs are here, they are angels compared to the tripe who decorate the Court. But yes, a hundred thousand times! Moreover, the De St. Valier were once the best of them all—the old people remember a time when their seigneur sympathized with their sorrows and sometimes even shared in their fun on feast days. That is why I feed their people when they come to me—feed them and tell them to keep believing in the De St. Valier. But alas, the devil has got into the last of them, so there you are!”

It was perhaps fortunate for both of them that she fled in hot haste down the greensward. Monsieur would certainly have been hard pressed to explain away his fit of laughter and mademoiselle been too angry to listen. Even as matters stood she was avenged. For when her guests were ready to leave she could not be found. The Comtesse la Barre, refreshed with sleep and a good breakfast, would have liked to express her appreciation. There was something about the place which commanded respect. The massive Italian chest, for instance, which Eugène had admired and she overlooked last night, made one feel like dropping a curtsy as one did to the King’s bed. “What a situation,” she sighed. “One cannot offer money to people who can afford such things as this.” Whereupon a second amiable notion presented itself. “Eugène, perhaps the poor girl knows no better—she may be an orphan.”

This charitable thought in mind, she turned to Jean as they were about to enter the carriage: “Express our thanks to your mistress. She has been most kind, and, if it be well taken, might I inquire whether mademoiselle is alone in the world?”

Knowing her kind of old, and anxious to set his beloved Lalage in the best light possible, he replied: “Madame, she has never known a mother, and her father is much from home. Little Mademoiselle is altogether too much alone.”

They were well upon the road before monsieur said anything, although the Countess had been discoursing with unusual animation upon the evils of a neglected education, especially as regards the idle female. But then he said: “True, true, my dear Élise. I have been reminded quite recently, and, I might add, with convincing proof, that the devil finds entertainment for idle hands.”

The Countess was at loss to understand why this should amuse him.

It was growing dusk when a three-masted merchantman, displaying marks of strenuous adventure, drew up to the stout chains which barred the narrow entrance to the inner port of old La Rochelle. “Ahoy, there!” boomed a hearty voice. “Open to the King’s trade!”

The keeper of the towers leaned out of the window. In addition to fading daylight fog was thickening. He saw nothing clearly except what the lights of the tower and his uplifted lantern played upon fitfully. The vessel had no distinguishing marks; a stout unembellished trader mounting guns and, judging from the way she leaned, from her shot-pocked waist and bulwarks, to say nothing of the damage to foretopmost-head and monkey gaff, she had stood in need of all her guns and the bold captain. “Ho, you within!” boomed the voice again. “Must we founder under your nose? Cast off your cursed chains. Mother o’ God, what a blockhead! Do you take me for a pirate politely begging grace of your lousy port intendant? Imbecile, do you not recognize the Swallow?”

The chains came down in double haste, the keeper to the steps in great anxiety; peering thence like some napping bird, he yelled up at the big ship dragging in like a wounded animal: “God pleasure you, Captain Gremion! Hark you, there are three new brigantines and a frigate under the Gross Horloge.”

The crippled vessel was close now; above the swish of the water against her bows, and the moaning wind she made in passing, the voice of the captain, seen as solidified shadow gesticulating into the fog, came eerily down. “Well ho, three, did you say? Pirate killers, eh, Gascon . . . three doughty ships-of-the-line?”

The keeper made a trumpet of his hands. “Sink me!” shouted he, sure now of the captain’s identity. “Three-hares-in-haste, Captain. Made port this mid-day after twelve hours’ fighting. Mayhap you met the pirate squad yourself?”

“Mayhap I did,” boomed the Captain, and passed on into the swirling fog knowing his port as he knew his own face, and in short shift docked at his private quay, known as the Quay of Our Lady; there, despite the burning impatience all governmental red tape provoked, he had, of course, to submit his vessel to official inspection and pay off his men. This finally completed to everyone’s satisfaction, and his private orders issued, Captain Gremion turned to the young man who, throughout these tedious transactions, had rarely left his side. “Well, Henri, our mistress will flay us, that is sure. But clap on now and stand away; fetch the monkey and put off gloom. We must make Rockpoint House to-night.” Without a word Henri Delouche went below and fetched a wicker basket from the depths of which issued endless scolding chatter. With mixed feelings of amusement and impatience, Captain Gremion watched the young man’s careful preparations. He forgot nothing. No woman could have packed their saddlebags with greater care or have been more fussy about the contents. And, although picked horses were waiting for them, for Pierre Gremion kept a stable near his warehouse, and though his grooms were old in service, Henri must himself go over saddle-girth and stirrup. “Well, blow me, my lad,” guffawed the cheery captain, “such caution tempts the devil!” And not without maliciousness he added, smiling: “Did you remember to pack the ginger sweets, my boy?”

Henri flushed to the eyebrows. “Would I be likely to forget them, sir, when—when . . . certainly I packed them,” he finished tartly.

Captain Gremion chuckled, glanced from his own rumpled appearance to the neatly spruced Henri and, not to be outdone, fetched from a deep pocket a huge coloured handkerchief with which he carefully wiped the high, polished boots he had put on just before docking. Still chuckling, he sprang to the saddle with an easy agility that testified to an adventurer as much at home on horseback as pacing the decks of a trader. “Come, lad,” he boomed good-naturedly. “Sure you would not forget. But, hark you. Never yet was lady won by courtesy and sweets alone. Blow me if the little jades don’t relish roughing now and then.”

But Henri Delouche was not one to take jest easily. He was a grave young man of one-track purposes and single-hearted devotion to his chosen gods; the chief one of which was Mademoiselle Gremion. His poverty (which Gremion prevented his discovering in its stark reality by bestowing upon him certain properties supposed to have been his father’s) led him to adopt the attitude of a squire in training. He must earn his spurs before aspiring to the sweetest girl in Charante. That Lalage seemed fond of him and her father set on the match might not affect his point of view; he must prove himself worthy of such extraordinary good fortune.

Henri had his joys, none the less. When Lalage bedevilled him, as she did mercilessly, his whole being sang with immeasurable joy. Her tempers acted as a bow to the deep viol of his love, and made sweetest music in his soul. Thus it was on this night when with hard riding they reached Rockpoint House and, despite the impossible hour, Lalage came flying down in bright-blue dressing-gown, with tiny blue slippers on her dainty white feet, and began at once to upbraid the travellers severely.

She leaped at her father, kissed him, squeezed him, kissed him again, and then, shoving him away, said angrily: “A fine parent you are. And look at him grinning—shameless as a tax-gatherer. You old vagabond, why do you not say you are ashamed to have missed my party? My birthday party, mind you—my eighteenth one at that, and a dear little pig sacrificed for the occasion.”

“Now, sweetheart, sweetheart——”

“Don’t sweetheart me, you humbug. Go off with you to bed, there is grey look on you. The fire is laid in your room and Jean will bring you something hot.”

“But shiver my stunsails, I am not ready for bed. I have brought you a lover, my girl: a proper match for your chittering. Where is the basket, Henri?”

Henri, whom she had purposely ignored, brought out the basket, threw back the lid and up peeped a bright yellow head. Oblivious of her adoring audience, Lalage dropped to her knees and began to woo the frightened little animal, as she had many a small wild creature, with meaningless crooning noises and stilly patience. At last, in one frightened bound, the monkey sprang to her arms and buried its head in the soft crook of her elbow. On looking up proudly she met Henri’s eyes, and all at once was hot and cold, ashamed of childishness and cross for no better reason.

“You should not have cooped him up in such a small place,” she said, bobbing to her feet in her swift fashion. “The poor little fellow is shivering with fright.”

Henri longed to say that others beside the monkey were shivering and had received no very kind welcome, but he replied gravely: “We had no better place, mademoiselle. I fed him carefully.”

Perhaps she sensed his grievance, for suddenly her warm smile flashed out at him. “Of course you did, Henri.” Then, blowing a kiss to her father, who was watching from the hearth fire, she danced up the stairs. At the top she called down gaily: “What is his name, Papa? Whose? Oh, stupidity! Why, whose indeed but the monkey’s?”

“Bless my soul, do you suppose I christened him?”

“Well, don’t trouble, Captain Gremion,” she called over the banister saucily. “There can be but one appropriate name—I shall call him Monseigneur!”

It was not until the next afternoon that Henri had a word with her alone. He found her in a pensive and serious mood, sitting at needlework in the pavilion on the slope; Monseigneur was scampering around her feet and two grey cats sleeping near. She gave him no opportunity to pick his subject: “Well, Henri,” she began at once in the determined voice she used when flood nor fire could stop her. “Now tell me the truth about these delays. I am no longer a child. Papa did not get that wound in the arm falling into the hold, as he said.”

Henri blanched, and his blue eyes avoided hers. But, marvel of love, he was able to speak lightly: “Indeed, mademoiselle, he fell into the hold—into a bin of meal, in fact; though in truth it was a bullet felled him.”

“A bullet? Henri, you were chased by pirates? Colbert is right, those dogs of the sea should be hunted to death. But why these evasions? Now, hear me, Henri Delouche, if you don’t bring Papa to reason, make him stay out of danger at his age, I swear to ship with him myself.”

Had he known her less he might have laughed. As it was he sat down, wondering what to say; what not to say. At such moments the humorous fates played their trump cards. There was a sudden ringing at the gate. Henri, visibly disturbed, leaped to his feet. Lalage, taking his arm, dragged him into the garden, perceiving with additional astonishment how anxiously he watched Jean unbar the gate.

Two men, in bright new uniforms of the kind introduced by Colbert for his budding navy, entered. They asked for Monsieur Gremion, a trader of La Rochelle. Lalage made to press forward, and for the first time in his life Henri foreswore caution and caught her in his arms. She could hear his heart pounding like a great clock and his breath labour in his deep chest. Despite indignation, she found this to be peculiarly arresting, pleasant, as is a chant heard at High Mass. But then he carried her back into the little house, shut the door, and stood with his back against it. That was something else again.

“Henri, are you mad!” she panted, though with less vehemence than when her purpose was playful. “Have the goodness to explain yourself. It is my duty to meet my father’s visitors.”

“These are no visitors,” said Henri, at loss for suitable words.

“Well, they are His Majesty’s men, and I have a fancy for uniforms.”

“Mademoiselle! Oh, Lalage, surely you know I must have some good reason. It is to spare you. These men—that is—there were two frigates engaged with the pirates. Yes, the ones who wounded your father. . . . Oh, there were other merchantmen attacked; the details would be painful. Lalage, dear, believe me.”

“You are lying, my poor Henri,” she told him calmly, “but I believe that you think it best. What does it matter how many vessels were attacked? Am I an infant to be kept from knowing the moon is not a gingercake and the sea a harmless playground? Now, let me go.”

Once in the house she flung him a cold, challenging look, for there before the hearth sat the gentlemen toasting each other and chatting with Captain Gremion in the most affable manner. Henri, she observed, turned the colour of ashes, and the sudden gleam in her father’s eyes seemed a warning. Could it be that Henri, good, blundering, faithful Henri, had been tricked into some sort of mischief? Could it be possible that he had been tricked into abetting some rascally pirate flying French colours?

The gentlemen arose as she entered. Very demure, she curtsied. Colbert’s young marines were charmed; her soft eyes seemed to speak a similar story. Her voice, clear as a flute and softly modulated, added to the most engaging shyness, completed their conquest. That she should find them awesome, lordly creatures proved her to be a girl of rare sensibility, and, quite naturally, increased their admiration and diminished their suspicions of the good Captain, her father. Lalage desired to support them in these happy sentiments without in the least comprehending what sort of game they played.

Henri had slipped away, which she took as further indication of fearful caution on his part. Well, those vain fellows in their silver braid and buttons must be kept from mischief-making. She sent Jean to the cellars for more wine to toast the new navy. Monsieur Gremion, at first amused, grew by degrees vaguely alarmed. Where on earth had his daughter come by such gay verses, such wit and scintillating nonsense? Disregarding his frowning looks, Lalage refilled the gentlemen’s glasses, spurred them to flights of oratory neither had known himself to possess, and finally the younger gallant owned to a love of singing. How thrilling! Mademoiselle instantly got out her harp. Papa Gremion, inwardly raging, was forced to sit silent while this mouse of a child with mischief in her eyes twanged her harp and sang like an angel.

But eventually, when the gentlemen had run out of tunes, and the fumes of the Captain’s old vintage began to clear, leaving a gently benumbing glow behind it, they remembered duties elsewhere. They remembered they had an appointment with one Gustave Freslon, an agent appointed by Colbert to investigate the shipping scandals of La Rochelle. What was more important, they were to meet a gentleman newly dispatched from the capital.

Captain Gremion recovered his humour. “A secret of police? Ha! that will get us somewhere,” he agreed. Intendants of Marine and their little snoopers were too often susceptible to gold. The visitors, eager to justify mademoiselle’s good opinion, now proceeded to explain that this new recruit to the forces of justice was a personage of distinction. Yes, indeed, the good Captain might look for law and order at last. They had their reward. Mademoiselle was carried away. “Oh, you mean he is of the noblesse? Oh, Papa, think of that—a gentleman condescending to investigate our wrongs!”

Yes, indeed, Colbert’s marines went away filled with a sense of well-being.

Captain Gremion faced his daughter gloomily. “Well, and what is the meaning of this? Where in heaven did you learn such shameless palaver? Blow me, daughter, if I make head or tail of it.”

“Not in Heaven, Papa. Here, where no one speaks the truth but the poor at our gates.”

“Well, stump me, sweetheart,” groaned her father, flashing the coloured handkerchief and blowing his nose like a hunting horn, “what would you? Is it fitting that innocence should hear the tales men tell, and the how and wherefore of brutal commerce? Ha, tell me that, my bold pussy!”

Lalage stamped her foot. “Try to understand, Papa. Innocence is not likely to suffer from the truth. Now be so good as to answer two sensible questions. Just what happens to a corsair who breaks the Marine Code, and what has Henri been doing to get those men on his heels?”

“God bless me! She asks a sensible question.” Papa sat down heavily. “Is there no end to foolishness? But yes, I see how it is, my child. Solitude begets wild fancies. We must see about a school; a pleasant young ladies’ school where the latest faldelals are taught.”

“Papa, don’t be ridiculous. You know very well I would not set foot again in another of those poisonous places. Not though you beat me an hundred thousand times. A thousand hundred times, do you hear?”

Papa had not fiery blue eyes and bristling black hair for nothing. Up he leaped, the big handkerchief waving like a mutinous flag in the wind of his anger. “Not a word more of this nonsense. Shiver and sink me, Lalage Gremion, I have a mind to put you in irons. I have a mind to chain and picket you to your stupid Henri. Mistress, I have a very good mind to sell you into matrimony. And may God have pity on the buyer.”

“Poof!” sniffed Lalage. “Have a mind to something sensible, your blood bitters, for instance; you are as purple as a gobbler. And spare your pity, Papa dear, I shall never marry Henri.”

Because there were tears in her eyes as she fled, she failed to observe Henri, white as death, standing humbly at the foot of the stairs, and that her father hastened after her, his weatherbeaten face grooved with distress. She saw nothing, heard nothing, for a great unhappiness had swept upon her; a bitter unrest and a deep distrust of the serene life she had been leading.

Madame Rainville frowned upon the faded image of her husband in the dim painting which hung upon the wall opposite her bed. Honoré Rainville smiled back with the same wistful gallantry that had greeted her every morning for fifty years. Monsieur Rainville, for ever young in his portrait, as he was in her heart, was, despite the tarnished frame and the perceptible dimming of pigments that attempted to hold him fast in an ageing world, the only apostle of cheer in this dismal room, and even his smile was wistful.

“Ah,” the aged lady lying prone upon her high canopied bed exclaimed half irritably, “even you begin to fade, beloved. I suppose I must come to the dismal fate of having cheesecloth hung between us as though death were not enough.”

With fine, very thin fingers she threw Monsieur Rainville a kiss, closed her fierce black eyes upon disagreeable reality, and was young once more; tall as her granddaughter Angeline was tall, and as vivacious; coming to the old château with her lover. And what a lover! Madame stirred uneasily on her ancient bed. Love was such a disquieting fire, so greedy and so swiftly done. She had seen it in others, and had learned to be glad that the Great Cardinal had assumed the powers of God and trapped her young husband to his death. Honoré Rainville had died defending his faith, believing in the sincerity of the Huguenot prince she had refused to betray to Richelieu. That he was shamefully murdered, done to death like any common offender, had seemed to him a singular distinction. . . . Well, Richelieu had been less cruel than many. She had been permitted to see her husband die. To see those humane brown eyes glow with the strange joy of the martyr and close for ever with faith undimmed. She had thought it of all fate the most horrible then; she saw it now as something almost sublime. Honoré, dead in the flesh, continued young in spirit, continued sweet, continued her dear beloved. Every morning his face was the first she looked upon, and it was still the same face which fifty years ago invaded her dreams and set her heart beating.

She had not always understood the ironies of life so well. For instance, how thankful she had been to learn that Richelieu did not intend to confiscate their estates. He had been told and, miracle of tolerance, had believed that though her husband was a Huguenot, she herself had remained Catholic. She had had only to promise to bring up her son in the King’s religion.

Madame Rainville sat up abruptly, felt along the edge of her bed for a silver-headed cane which always lay there ready to hand, and gripping it hard in her veinous white hand, tapped the floor sharply. Her face, pointed yet not very long, had assumed its customary sharp alertness. Always impatient, she tapped again and waited, listening intently. At last from far down the corridor came the sound of footsteps. Angeline had heard her. She would hurry now into the tiny kitchen they had improvised on this upper floor to make her morning chocolate. While she waited Madame’s bright eyes wandered round the huge room. “Empty as a barracks and chilly as a tomb” said she, expressing her thoughts out loud as she often did. This reflection never failed to remind her of her son; her one consolation, as she had once thought—the bright young chevalier trained under such magnificent masters! The old lady caught hold of the curtain looped back from her bed and gave it a vigorous shake. A cloud of dust ascended in musty incense. “Faugh! that Brittany hussy cleans nothing. Her thoughts are all of her stomach.” Madame Rainville seized her cane again and pounded the floor more vigorously. What was the matter with her granddaughter? Sometimes it seemed as if Angeline was becoming altogether too much like her father; not so much indifferent as oblivious of the rights of others. Well, he, too, was dead. Neither the cult of Richelieu handed down by faithful henchmen, nor the sly policies of Mazarin had saved him from himself. Poor Aime, it was almost amusing to reflect that after all his fine persecution of the principles that had meant so much to his father he should have stumbled on the rock of his own beliefs—become a Frondist and died almost a pauper.

The sharp old face wrinkled with cynical mirth. Aime dying had beheld no mythical gleaming grail. His last words were not for his motherless baby nor his desolate mother: “My carriages, my horses, my pretty Rosalie!” That was his cry. And because this Rosalie could weep such an egoist, if for no better reason than the loss of her pension, Madame had given her Aime’s house a few leagues from Paris on the Versailles road. She had never ceased being thankful for the resentment that had prevented her from taking any of his things back to La Vendée.

Here in her crumbling château eternal youth lived with her in the memory of her husband. Here the chill of the mouldy and neglected near-empty rooms was charged with springtime gladness on the turn of a phrase or the sound of a bird singing. Here, O paradox! except for young Angeline, she might drift out of the dust and disillusionment of years and with Honoré merge into eternal dreams.

But Angeline permitted no drifting, and her dreams were the bright metallic tinkling dreams of beggar men and kings! The door opened. Up sat the old lady and shook her cane at the practical vision who entered. “Do you take me for a camel that you must boil a barrel of chocolate, Angeline?”

Brisk, smiling without warmth, and quick without haste, Angeline disposed of her tray on the bed-table, buttered a hot roll for her grandmother and poured out chocolate into two cups so that she might go on drinking without experiencing any annoying change of temperature.

“Madame la Barre received word from her brother this morning, Grandmamma,” she informed the old lady in her bright, unemotional manner. “He should be here before to-night.”

“Ah, so he has decided that pressing affairs—mark well that phrase, Angeline, for I believe it to be the original serpent!—these pressing affairs can now be suspended for a time, and friends visited? Angeline, are you listening?”

“I was thinking,” returned Angeline calmly.

“Of what?” snapped her grandmother.

“Of myself,” was the answer.

Madame Rainville looked across at her husband’s image and wished for once he did not smile. “May I ask in what particular? Are you unwell or putting on weight, or possessed of some sudden conviction?”

“I am never unwell, never inclined to be fat, and my convictions are seldom sudden. I was wondering if I might be called beautiful.”

“Now here is a philosopher!” jeered the old lady. “And have you gone about it scientifically? Have you consulted your mirror and, let us be frank, taken a proper survey of the stock-in-trade?”

“I know my skin to be good, though I should like it bleached whiter. My feet and hands are shapely. Madame la Barre told me yesterday that I walked gracefully; I do not see much amiss with my face, but then, I cannot judge, never having been to the capital where beautiful women gather.”

Madame set down her empty cup. “I venture these pointed reflections have something to do with monsieur’s coming—or am I wrong, my dear?”

“Why should they not?” retorted Angeline without heat. “Do you suppose I have not suspected why you want him to come, and why madame stays on in this cheerless place when she might be home in beautiful St. Valier.”

“Tut! The Château de St. Valier is older than this. It is not so empty, it may not even leak, but I wager it moulders in the same thick dust. Give me my gown and slippers. And tell that wench of ours we do not desire to be pickled in brine; the soup was salt as seawater last night. Oh yes, about your face; I may be wrong, of course, tastes change in everything, but I should call it a museum piece, my dear. And if I were you I should sell it to someone who would appreciate that.”

Angeline was unaffected. She went for the dressing-gown and the slippers and by no means unkindly helped her grandmother rise. This done, and the old lady seated in her favourite chair at the window, where she could see over a wide tract of grazing land and straggling peasant huts beyond, Angeline said, and her blue eyes were cold as mountain waters: “You are warning me, Grandmamma, which is a little silly considering your conferences with Madame la Barre; you should have made certain monsieur was a collector of museum pieces.”

Madame lost her temper. “Oh, I perish! This icy logic freezes my blood. Be off with you and give me peace to thaw. I only hope all the rumours concerning the Marquis are true; a heart as cold as yours needs breaking.”

These sentiments notwithstanding, Madame Rainville suffered a doubt or two that evening when Monsieur de St. Valier kissed her hand. Old as she was her pulse quickened, and she was thankful that malicious fortune had left her a few fine laces and the grace to wear them. Indeed, as he saw her she made a rare picture, with her white hair, animated eyes, and stately poise. He had remembered her as a rather awesome matron with a quick, cutting tongue. But then, he had been a little boy on that occasion, caught teasing her favourite cat.

To her he had not even been a memory. In a detached way she had known that Élise, her young friend and fellow-sufferer in the wars of the Fronde, had a brother many years younger somewhere in military school. That Élise had brought little Eugène to the château she had quite forgotten. Someone was always coming and going in those troubled years, and children were being brought in from the roads as a matter of course.

But now she studied him in earnest and with quiet amusement. The kindest critic could hardly have called Élise handsome. The Countess might have passed for a man, with her sharp features and spare figure—a strict conventionalist, poor Élise, and something of a prude. But here was the beloved brother sold to deviltry of course and clothed with the graces of the gods. They were alone. Angeline was dressing, the Countess could be heard directing the Brittany workhorse, as Madame designated her female servant. Now was the time to establish confidence. Her two hands clasped upon the head of her cane, Madame smiled upon her visitor.

“Monsieur, I shall call you Eugène; it is the right of very young women and very old ones—and I am seventy. Now tell me, what would you do with a girl cold-blooded as a theologian, shrewd as an old woman, and good-looking as a ballet dancer?”

Monsieur, a little taken aback, but seeing the merriment in her eyes, hazarded to reply: “Why, madame, you astonish me. Such a paragon were worth her weight in gold at Court.”

She nodded, leaned her chin upon the back of her hands and thought awhile, seeming to forget him. Then, fixing him with her bright eyes, she said a curious thing: “Monsieur, life is in nothing so astonishing as this that one’s children often seem alien and strangers close kin. Perhaps there is some truth in that jargon of pre-existence and hangover sympathy. But I wander, and moreover have no desired to be damned. What I have been thinking since you sat here beside me is this: Long, long ago I was young and a man not unlike you loved me. He was ardent, enthusiastic, open-hearted. Though less charitable, the same might have been said of me; yet our son was close as a clam and cold as an oyster. And his daughter, I begin to believe, has all the perquisites of a Salome. I misjudge you if my point seems obscure.”

Though he responded with a jest, she divined in him the quick sensibilities she missed in most others. “Madame, this is terrible. You hint that heads may be forfeit to your beautiful granddaughter. But consider, is not that a glorious end for poor masculine skulls?”

“Ah, Eugène, how I should have adored a son possessed of sense instead of politics! Well, here she is.” This as Angeline entered. “My child, I present our cousin-german whom we have waited so long to see; Monsieur le Marquis, my granddaughter Angeline.”

Angeline curtsied—as she did all else—with studied grace. Monsieur de St. Valier thought her charming. Her face was faultless, her hair a rich deep brown, and her figure slender without angularity. She had lovely white teeth and a flashing smile, fascinating because it passed so swiftly.

As the days went by and they were much together, he discovered to his pleasure that she was amiable and well read. Moreover, reared in this isolation and almost impenetrable bocage, she had acquired a taste for healthy exercise. Dressed in a plain cloth habit and stout shoes, she liked to tramp the country-side, and she rode as well as a man.

In fact Eugène de St. Valier began to question whether, if marry he must, as his sister kept reminding him, Angeline were not an excellent match. She had the self-control and poise Élise cited as indispensable to high estate. She would be ballast to his impetuosity; and she was consistently cheerful.

So much for meditation. The mischief was, this marvellous balance, evenness of temper, and unfailing good sense threatened to bore him beyond reason. He walked beside the smiling Angeline, tried her with cynicism, satire, and sentiment; was sometimes pert and sometimes fatuous, and she always knew exactly how to take him! The Marquis shuddered. These virtues, how so indispensable to the success of married life, had none of the beauty and all of the chill of an iceberg. Such perfect equanimity was doubtless to be required in a wife, but in a lover how frightful!

Besides, there were other times when Angeline’s flashing smile and white, pointed teeth reminded him of a cat. And Monsieur le Marquis had never liked cats, which was a pity. Also, though her eyes, set under charming brows, sought his frequently, he avoided their crystalline depths. Nevertheless, he was not insensible to her good-nature. She never questioned his singular passion for fishing villages, country constables, bailiffs, and disreputable inns. If he kept her waiting while he plied some strange character with questions that must have seemed absurd, she said nothing. It was she who always excused him to Élise if he failed to return at an appointed hour or remained away for days. In this her tact exceeded that of old madame, who, without saying a word, had a way of making him feel a very bad boy come home from a prank.

All this considered, it is not surprising that Monsieur le Marquis should find himself listening with more patience to his sister’s representations. Mademoiselle Angeline, despite no better dowry than run-down Rainville, was heir to great traditions, and possessed a rare personal charm. Besides—this was her trump card—old Madame Rainville was set on the match. It would be cruel to wreck her last hopes.

But just about the time the Marquis was seriously considering offering up his liberty to please madame, a strange thing happened. One morning Mademoiselle Angeline came home from the village which clung to the skirts of Rainville château like fungus, and her blue eyes were colder than ever. “Grandmamma,” she began, tossing off hat and gloves, and though her voice was as nicely modulated as ever the temperature seemed to drop, “I must ask you to write a letter forbidding meddling in the village. Our people are being stirred up by some busybody they call Little Mademoiselle.”

The Marquis suffered the heady sensation of swift relief from impending bondage and as swiftly something within clamoured angrily. Little Mademoiselle a busybody! It was somehow intolerable to hear her mentioned by this cold, self-contained Angeline. Little Mademoiselle, whom he remembered with sunlight on her head and sunlight in her eyes; sweet through and through with delightful inconsistencies. He looked at Angeline and could no longer decry a single virtue. At forty she would be bleak-nosed, crafty, and abominably self-sufficient.

Angeline went on: “It is ridiculous. I wanted a boy to drive cattle to market and the whole blessed village was engrossed with a picnic arranged for them by this person. Naturally, I was just. But I said it must not occur again.”

“Tut, tut!” exclaimed grandmother, pounding the floor with her cane. “Why may it not happen again? Your grandfather, as I now remember, gave the village an outing twice a year; a real jamboree with barbecued meat and good wine for everybody, and dancing here in the courtyard afterwards. Since we are too poor, too selfish, and too unimaginative to do it, why object to having it done for us?”

“You do not understand, Grandmother. She’s a questionable character who lives in a mysterious house surrounded by high walls like a prison. We cannot have a person like that inciting our peasants to heaven knows what foolishness.”

Monsieur le Marquis came forward, a smile upon his face. “Your indulgence, my dear cousin. I have visited that house. It is an agreeable prison, and you may believe me, Little Mademoiselle is not a questionable character.”

Angeline changed the subject. So he called her cousin! And true to his reputation, he had already discovered Little Mademoiselle.

Gustave Freslon laid down the papers he had been reading and, addressing the courier before him, said: “Everything appears satisfactory. I expect Monsieur de St. Valier; he is bringing two ladies ostensibly to inspect my curios. He will be gratified to learn that Colbert approves of his plan. Report for further orders to-morrow morning.”

The man hesitated, debating something in mind. Monsieur Freslon, known to be just, was, however, not one to inspire unsolicited confidences. But the desire to be mouthpiece of the spectacular won. “Monsieur Freslon, there is something you should know. That is, sir, I believe it worth repeating.”

Gustave Freslon glanced at the clock. He had several dispatches to sign and seal for delivery, and he must dress to meet the ladies. Monsieur Freslon made almost the fetish of his toilet as did His Majesty the King. This tale might be sheer gossip, yet, excellent lawyer, Freslon understood the value of trifles. “Well, what is it we should know?” he demanded, glancing again at the clock.

“This, monsieur. As you know it was raining yesterday; the going was difficult. I came into La Rochelle wet to the skin and dog-tired, and so made straight for the Sailor’s Tavern. To make a long story short, while I sat drinking my cognac in a corner near the fire I heard a low moan which I made sure came from the partition behind me. There was a good deal of merriment going on at the tables, which afforded opportunity to listen unobserved. Someone badly wounded lay in the room beyond; none of which had surprised me if Monsieur Delouche had not entered a little later and, after a whispered consultation with the tavern-keeper, disappeared into the back of the building and did not reappear.”

Monsieur Freslon frowned. “What is singular in that? You forget that Captain Gremion owns the tavern, as he does most else in that quarter, and Delouche is a sort of son to him.”

The courier bowed. “I merely related what I observed. Monsieur de St. Valier has asked that any suspicious incident be reported.”

“Very well,” said Freslon, once more consulting the timepiece and rising to his feet. “It shall be reported. Be back in the morning.”

Some hours later Gustave Freslon, dressed in faultless taste, if a trifle elegantly for a mere lawyer, applied himself to the pleasant duty of being host to Madame la Barre and Mademoiselle Rainville. The Marquis had recalled a pressing appointment and begged to be excused. The Countess thought this in keeping with his behaviour of late. Indeed, she would have liked to turn back immediately when he hinted he must leave them. But Angeline tactfully drew attention to the beauty of the park through which they were passing, and the dignity of Freslon’s house to be seen through the trees. The master of such a place would surely know how to regale a tedious hour.

Mademoiselle would discover peace in bedlam, Monsieur had said with, the Countess believed, flattering emphasis. Which mollified her displeasure and made it less difficult to admit that she really wanted to see Gustave Freslon’s famous art treasures.

She had no cause to regret it. Monsieur Freslon’s collection was exquisite, his entire ménage delightful. After the dreary atmosphere of Rainville it had the effects of rich sunshine. Her spirits revived; she felt all at once that Eugène’s escapades were not her affair nor perhaps of great consequence. That she should be almost gay, inclined to jest, and longing to enjoy this luxurious feeling as a cat enjoys leisure, was so miraculous that all else faded into insignificance. This, she was bound to admit, was the happy effects of Freslon’s assiduous attentions. Mademoiselle Angeline was no less affected. Here was suasion not to be ignored. Fine damask, luxurious couches out of Oriental palaces, paintings, statues, delicate ivories, not to mention again the attentions of the host, himself resplendent in pearl-grey silk and smart periwig. A most agreeable gentleman who, if no longer young, at least possessed as well turned a leg as ever wore silk stocking. Here, in fact, was the alchemy required to transmute the cold blue crystal of Angeline’s eyes to diamond facets.

Gustave Freslon, as was to be expected of one fortunate in pocket, was no enemy of the fair sex nor stranger to its charms. Yet so far his marble Venuses and gold-leaf Aphrodites, his dream-spun ivories and sea-spew jade had sufficed him. But now, considering Angeline, her fine profile cast like a cameo upon the red cushion upon which her perfect head reclined, he suddenly perceived that whatever gems he might acquire none would be so great a possession as the exquisite statue in vibrant flesh. That her dress was simple, her shoes re-dyed, and her ornaments a solitary emerald suspended from a thin silver chain, pleased him. Especially when he reflected that somewhere in his collection of jewels companion stones lay tucked away—stones Madame Rainville’s aged servant, Joseph, now dead some months, had brought him from time to time, along with other valuables, to sell for that once great lady.

Monsieur de St. Valier was late in returning; might not come at all, such were his irregularities now. Madame, a little overcome with flattery, sweets, the aromatic warmth of the perfumed rooms, and the dancing lights of candelabra, found herself nodding. It was mortifying; but as usual Angeline came to the rescue. She suggested that Madame permit herself to drowse, and paid their host the supreme compliment of conducting herself with charming familiarity. She asked for a footstool and a wrap. These put into her hands by Freslon, who was as delighted as she had intended, Angeline proceeded to put her dear Countess into cosier position and prettily commanded her to indulge in a little nap. “You see, monsieur,” she informed Freslon, “madame will not spare herself. She was up at dawn to help make Grandmamma comfortable; making such preparations one would think we intended staying away a month. So now she shall be made to rest. Monsieur, is it asking too much if I beg for another look at your crystals?”

It was so far from too much that to make amends Freslon unlocked a door which might have been mistaken for a painted panel. The door swung back to reveal a semicircular cabinet, its walls covered with costly tapestries in colours so richly glowing the figures woven upon them seemed alive. An ebony table with grotesquely twisted legs stood in the middle of the floor, a chair of the same wood drawn under it. The only other furnishing was a crescent-shaped set of drawers of some time-resisting metal. This, too, was painted black and stood upon legs, and had so many little drawers with brass locks, it brought to mind those scaly monsters of antiquity which, unless some knight-errant came to the rescue, was certain to gobble up at least one virgin before his day was done.

The illusion was by no means diminished when Monsieur Freslon began opening drawer after drawer, and Angeline saw, with actual pain at her heart, the splendid sparkle of jewels whose pure facets throbbed with myriad rainbows. “How beautiful, monsieur,” she whispered. “I had not thought such treasure existed except at Court. I think I must be dreaming.”

Gustave Freslon was flattered. She was sincere, more lovely in his eyes by the flush of excitement upon her cheeks. “You approve my collection. I am glad. Sometimes I have wondered if a woman of refinement would approve.”

“You jest, monsieur. Your kindness prompts it to one you know cut off from grandeur. Why, no woman lives who would not give her soul for such treasures.”

He was a little startled. But not so much as might be expected. After all, Freslon was a self-made man. He could remember times when he himself had thought no price too great to pay for this and that fulfilment. He remembered, for instance, a day at Rheims when the drapers were celebrating a guild anniversary, and he, a poor ragged orphan, had said to himself there was nothing he would not do to go dressed in silks and velvets like some of the tradesmen’s sons. And to be sure there was very little he had not done to accomplish it.

How many humiliations he had suffered to obtain an education. What scorn from those he served so humbly! After that, what years of tactful ministry and self-effacement had been required to win him patronage. No, it was not difficult for Gustave Freslon to guess what thoughts prompted Angeline to express herself so extravagantly. Smiling, he picked up a necklet of glowing emeralds and held them up to the light. “These, I think, could hardly be surpassed even in St. Germain. I have sometimes thought of offering them to Madame de Montespan. It seems rather a pity to keep them buried here.”

“To that dreadful woman—those heavenly stones? Oh, monsieur, surely not.”

He gave them into her hand, well knowing what would be the wrench of parting. “Mademoiselle, be comforted. It were a crime to think of it now. I have discovered that La Montespan is not the most beautiful woman in France.”

Angeline blushed, but whether from being compared to the King’s new mistress, or from pleasure to hold in the palm of her hand a fortune instinct told her need not be relinquished, were difficult to say. “Green fire! Was ever anything more beautiful offered the gods? Monsieur, I begin to fear you understand too well the tempter’s art.”

He liked that. “Mademoiselle, I assure you such has not been my ambition heretofore . . . however——”

Mademoiselle Rainville dropped the necklet into the case with a quick, nervous movement. “I should not press the logic further, monsieur,” she said hastily. “That is, not now,” she amended, flashing upon him her fleet, irresistible smile.

Monsieur de St. Valier did not take the road to La Rochelle nor at once hurry away upon his mission. Madame the Countess would have been more incensed could she have followed his suspicious movements. He went straight to Freslon’s hunting lodge, which stood in the depths of the forest, admitted himself by private key, locked the door behind him, drew the thick curtains, and, from a closet, brought out black garments of dull velvet, a material designed to merge with shadow. With cruel disregard, if not actual eagerness, the Marquis flung off the powder-blue satin which madame had pressed him to wear for the bedazzlement of Mademoiselle Angeline. His curled periwig fared even worse, it was tossed into a corner, and with a sigh of relief he shook back his own black crop with the joy of a horse relieved of a head-rein. The transformation may have lost him caste but very little else. The trim velvet fitted him snugly, and in a subtle manner drew attention to the fine bone structure that supported his smooth-flowing muscles. A touch of white lace at neck and sleeve, the great ruby which never left his index finger, his sword, and a rather long black cape completed the costume. Monsieur de St. Valier, the sometimes cynic and suave courtier, grinned at his reflection in the strip of mirror which Freslon’s vanity had introduced even here, shrugged his shoulders, and, lifting a derisive eyebrow, he saluted himself: “Eugène, you will meet the axe yet!” After which felicity he opened a dispatch-box that had been fitted into the window embrasure. A scrap of paper was all the box contained, but its message was gratifying: ‘St. Martin leaving Brest; plan approved, His Majesty’s authority to act forthcoming.’ Signed ‘Colbert.’ A footnote in Freslon’s neat handwriting added: ‘Wounded man in hiding at Sailor’s Tavern—Captain Gremion interested.’

Monsieur le Marquis, suddenly reminded of Madame de Montespan’s insupportable insolence and vengefulness, smiled grimly. What a blow it would be to her pride if, after all, his exile should neither destroy nor even humiliate him. Then, somewhat contemptuously, he thought of the poor fool, her husband, cooling his fever in the Bastille. What waste of decent manhood! What folly for Monsieur de Montespan to presume to protect a virtue cheerfully sold long since!

Monsieur de St. Valier had not risked his own liberty and place at Court assisting the Marquis through any mistaken notion that the joke would soften the lady. He had not watched her refined tortures of De la Vallière without reaching a better understanding of De Montespan’s character. For which reason it pleased him to think of the favourite’s fury when she should discover what a piece of fine business Colbert was likely to make of her vengefulness. What a clever devil Colbert was, to be sure! He had them all chained like pigs to a feeding-trough. The King had to have money to have his Montespan. La Montespan, with a stone for heart, had none the less a level head when her own interests were at stake. She could not insist upon killing the goose who laid the golden egg. Thanks to Colbert, the Marquis de St. Valier was now the goose in question. Monsieur picked up his hat and cloak; remembered his sister, and hastily scribbled a note telling her not to wait for him.

He had much to do. So far neither his nor the investigations of Freslon’s men satisfied him. He knew that cargoes were being intercepted with impunity, and contraband goods cached in a dozen coastal hamlets. The old-time sailors distrusted Colbert’s code, thinking it an insult to honest adventurers. Port officials were prone to favour those who could make it worth their while, and this was not Colbert with his rigid economy. The newly licensed corsairs proceeded to make ducks and drakes of the Admiralty Boards, and pleaded, when found guilty of an almost universal offence, that it was dangerous and foolish to demand that they stand back to port with every fresh prize or strip their decks to provide prize crews for the captured vessel to be sent into port. They contended that it was only a common-sense measure to accept ransom money of the conquered ship and let it go rather than run such risks and lose so much valuable time. But the practice of accepting money was a ticklish one for the Boards, for who was to prove whether the corsair reported the amount rightly or not?

His note written, the Marquis felt a load off his back. In excellent spirits he left the lodge, mounted his big black stallion, and disappeared into the wood.

Difficulties, odious to another, were an incentive to Monsieur de St. Valier. An uncertain road was at once a symbol and an adventure; an indefinite passage where those subtler forces, to be felt but rarely understood, combined with Nature’s concrete obstacles to create a challenge, a delusion, and a snare. The sly, boggy pit set for the feet with as little warning as the white harlot gives; barricades of fallen trees, their naked limbs upthrust as ugly and futile as rigid arms of men dead in battle; the blind avenue, the black pit, the grey, creeping shadows breathing the sorrows of an old wood, these monsieur loved. He loved them almost as well as he loved the stir of green leaves and the mottled embroidery sunlight wove into the aching greys of a winter landscape or the ghostly filigree of moon magic where slim white birches blow.

Purposeful ruthlessness and compensating beauty, these were present in the wild bocage. Nature still ruled here; paths made at great cost to men were almost obliterated in a single downpour of rain, and the little silken streams swelled exultantly and came boiling down the startled hillsides. Such things he had known as a boy in La Vendée. The little hint of it here was precious.

A backward province, his La Vendée, where the noblesse lived simply, cared for their people, wielded the middle justice, the high and the low, and went to Paris no more than decency and a worshipful King demanded. No doubt, with the efficient Colbert swiftly coming to the fore, all this would change. Progress and improvement and oppression were the new and tireless trinity. Already Rochefort was springing up a neat town dull as a kitchen closet, where all streets criss-crossed according to route and not a solitary object existed for anything but utility! Monsieur de St. Valier set his horse at a brambled barrier behind which lurked the winking brown eye of a pool, and laughed at the fine sharp arch they made to clear it. Progress be damned, muttered the Marquis, and patted his horse.

Now the land began to lift, to harden under the feet, to leave off vagaries and support the dignity of ancient trees. All the little loitering streams and infant pools set themselves, like sober scholars bent on awesome glory, to the serious purpose of reaching the deep river whose voice came droning down the wind. Monsieur de St. Valier drew rein sharply. The view he commanded was inspiring and beautiful, for now the shining bosom of the broad Charante showed itself in a dip of land curving and white as the breast of a woman. Beautiful, but the Marquis perceived something more intriguing in the half-obliterated trail that edged away from the well-trodden path. This rabbity trail flirting through the dark trees he knew instinctively to be bound for the sloping green and the gate behind which Little Mademoiselle held court. Monsieur bethought himself of the St. Martin; made a rapid calculation of time and distance; reflected cheerfully that the frigate had to traverse the meanest waters on the coast, and, with a laugh, accepted the lure of the light-foot, hill-wending trail.

The deeper he went into the woods, trees pressing as close upon either hand as jealous lovers, the clearer grew certain little memories heretofore conscientiously rejected. Little Mademoiselle floating down a broad old stairway, her green gown and golden head reminiscent of wood flowers, her dainty face alight with generous animation, her tongue so bittersweet. Little imp! He remembered too well the flash of her eyes as they encountered the icy astonishment of madame, his sister. And, womanwise, she struck at him. Pardon, she took him for a pedlar!

Monsieur de St. Valier grinned and patted his horse, and grew sober again. Mademoiselle in her garden holding court was not an amusing recollection. A hundred times during his rambles over the country-side the wretched poor had brought the scene back to him, and always with the same result. He refused to think about it. That, he now suspected, was the main reason he had enjoyed Angeline’s excellent common sense. Angeline accepted hunger and thirst and incredible squalor as a natural and necessary contrast. Heaven and hell were an ideal arrangement to her. Little Mademoiselle, he could well believe, would quarrel with the archangels. A dozen times he had caught himself wishing the red-headed boy—who belonged at St. Valier—would drift his way. And sometimes since that morning when Angelina had raged about the picnic her dirty village was enjoying through Little Mademoiselle’s kindness, he had caught himself thinking strange thoughts. St. Valier might so easily be restored to ancient happiness or a new and even happier regime introduced.

Thanks to Anne of Austria, who at times acted upon generous impulse, the De St. Valiers had not suffered as deeply as many others through the wars of the Fronde. The late Marquis had, to the end, believed in the ancient rights of the noblesse, but to the same degree in loyalty to his King. And at least once during those troublesome years the Queen and her two young sons had taken shelter and received financial aid at the Château La Croix in Deaux, the ancestral home of Eugène de St. Valier’s mother.

As a consequence, the château was razed to the ground by the Queen’s enemies, and to retaliate the fiery Marquis de St. Valier had sold the lands for Her Majesty’s further assistance.

It was all a bit hazy, and smacked of the insincerities which characterized that hit and miss war. But the Queen, no stranger to shifting policies, and anxious to win over the young nobles, saw fit to remember the sacrifice of La Croix when finally her regency was secure.

Monsieur smiled wryly. Oh, the lands were his, the villages and the people—nothing much altered except his will to act—and Little Mademoiselle laid that to the devil!

He pursued the thought no further. He had come to the far side of the grove, the hillside, gently sloping, lay before him, the sun-dried grasses, weaving an uneven carpet, seemed to lie loosely on the hummocks and smooth as glass on the firm places between. Grey-brown, with tawny bits of sun-baked moss and tatters of wild green vine clinging about its feet, rose the wall which surrounded mademoiselle’s house. A solid structure this Rockpoint House, of an ugliness unrelieved and honest, it commanded respect. A house to withstand the stress of time and hold comfortable and safe the least no less than the greatest of its inmates.

Monsieur decided to approach the little gate which led into mademoiselle’s rock garden. He had just reached the thickets that topped the slope when the main gate swung open and a man on a sorrel horse swept through. Almost simultaneously Little Mademoiselle materialized as out of the air and stood all blue and gold and filmy white atop the wall. The Marquis caught his breath. “Mother of God, the crazy little thing will break her neck!” But mademoiselle was as unconcerned as an elf. Lifting her silk skirts daintily, she skipped along the narrow ledge with the careless confidence of a kitten. “Henri, Henri,” she called. Monsieur sat irresolute. To eavesdrop a lovers’ rendezvous was not his inclination. Yet if he came rushing forth would they bless him for it? Retire into the thickets he would not; the best he would do for them was to remain where he was. “Henri, you goose,” mademoiselle called again. The horseman swung round and came back and stopped in a cloud of dust below the vision on the wall.

The Marquis endeavoured neither to observe nor hear them, but his eyes kept straying in mademoiselle’s direction. She had dropped down to her knees. “Please, Henri, I would not have you go angry,” she said, the honey of her voice a healing balm. Henri, monsieur perceived, was a frank-looking young fellow whose honest features, wrapped in deepest gloom, changed to shining joy at sound of these words. A presentable young man, but where the devil had he seen him? He seemed familiar. Which pleased the Marquis not at all, nor yet his adoring attitude. “Oh, mademoiselle,” the idiot gasped in exactly the tones used by actors who see the gates of Paradise open, “I am never angry with you, dear.” More fool you, thought the Marquis, glaring into space. “No,” Henri went on, “not angry, Lalage, but hurt to think you cannot understand I must go—that it is impossible to be back in time.”

“You said all that before,” mademoiselle interrupted him, and flicked a lace handkerchief at a little brown lizard which had come scampering up the wall. “You are always going and coming, Henri; going and coming when you please. It is I must remain—be here when you leave to wave a fond farewell and shout hallelujah when you return. What a tender picture!”

Henri had not the gift of ready repartee. Words seemed foolish things at best, and not at all suited to the deeper things of life. He loved her. In his simplicity he imagined that to justify and make everything plain. Secretive and shy, it was distressing to be forced now to blurt out what he wanted to confess only after success had made the confidence dignified.

“Mademoiselle, I—that is, I am taking my own ship to-night. I mean, your father is setting me up for captain. If I make good——”

Lalage straightened, became the stiffest of white-gold effigies, and her voice came cuttingly cold: “Oh, well, get along then, Henri. Your ship would, of course, mean more than my happiness. Papa could not put off the honour a few days, I suppose.”

“Lalage, you know your happiness is all we think of. You are unreasonable and beastly cruel,” cried poor Henri, stung to the quick, and then made the fatal mistake of instantly retracting the truth. Mademoiselle smiled sweetly.

“Good luck, Henri. Tell Papa that Helena sent word she is very ill. She needs help. There was something about papers, too.”

“Is that all you find to say?” asked Henri, his eyes pleading and much too humble.

“No,” Lalage answered, “but it is better left unsaid. Good-bye, Monsieur Henri. Be sure to catch a pirate and bring his toque to me.”

Henri wheeled away, the powdery dust white and glinting in the low sunlight behind him. The small, stiffly erect figure on the wall slumped pathetically; Little Mademoiselle bowed her proud head and wept.

Monsieur le Marquis had a feeling that light itself had died, the face of life grew so black and hopeless. Worse, the malicious ghost of it leered at him from the tree-tops behind mademoiselle’s drooping head. It seemed very much as if the bottom had dropped out of everything, or at least that common sense had quitted existence. Sunlight had become shadow, hope had no justification, and joy wept.

The black stallion, stung by a gadfly, kicked out angrily with a powerful hind foot. The gadfly soared off unaffected, but monsieur woke from his coma. Something must be done. The something resolved itself into a dig of heel and a shout that bolted the horse into the road. “Easy, easy! Over, you brute! Steady there, steady!” the Marquis cautioned the animal, and felt a perfect ass.

Lalage sat up quickly, shook back her bright hair and with obvious interest watched his approach. Her face lighted with pleased recognition, and she waved her tear-dank handkerchief. Monsieur responded in kind, sweeping off his hat, greatly relieved that harmony was restored and the old earth firm once more. “Ah, mademoiselle,” he greeted her with mock gravity as he spun to a stop, “I sorrow, I almost said it kills me, to see how more aloof and lofty you grow each day.”

“I thought it had—killed you,” she retorted, wrinkling her nose impertinently. “You stayed so long in the thickets.”

It stung out of reason; that it should sting at all was shock in itself. Monsieur felt himself flushing like a schoolboy. “Mademoiselle, I assure you I had no thought to stand there of my own accord.”

“Oh, I know, I know,” she checked him, imperious and sunny, smiling to melt a heart of stone, “you were afraid to proceed, ashamed to stay, and when I started to bawl—” she threw up her hands and broke off into a laugh, “ah, then, monsieur, you would have liked a slingshot like little David. I know the feeling, but——” She stopped, seemingly intent upon a minute survey of his apparel. Mischief in her eyes, she resumed: “If I may suggest it, when monsieur desires to merge completely with the shadows he should wear black lace.”

Something was heard to scratch upon the other side of the wall. Lalage swung round and bobbed her head over. “Oh, wickedness!” she cried. “Monseigneur, how dare you come away without your hat? Well, come along, then, up with you, you bad fellow.”

A small monkey, of a light tawny shade, with wideset blue eyes and dressed in scarlet gown with cardinal cape, came flying to her hands. She pointed to the gentleman in the road. “Monseigneur, permit me to present the chevalier of the creaking wheel. Monsieur,” she apologized to the Marquis, “you must forgive me, but names, I cannot remember them. We classify our visitors thus: Madame Cheese and Eggs, Monsieur The Green Bag, Monsieur Broken Wheel, and so forth. Which reminds me, is madame recovered from her experience here in the wilds?”

Pretty cat! Her sweet guilelessness could not deceive him. He had caught the mocking, half-malicious gleam that flashed from her eyes before the dark lashes hid them. “Madame is very well, thank you,” he replied drily, wondering why he lingered. The sun was riding low. At this rate it would be dark before he reached his destination, too late to see those he should see. Excellent suasion, yet he made no move to go.

Lalage sprang to her feet in a single effortless bound. These startling will-o’-the-wisp movements were characteristic of her boundless energy and chameleon interests. For no sensible reason his heart missed a beat. There she stood looking down at him, dainty, demure, and incredibly little, her small, tawny pet tucked in the crook of her arm, a sudden serious concern in her face.

“Monsieur, I have been very rude. I trust you are not too tired, yet tired enough, to accept hospitality in amends.”

Her words, uttered so gravely, joined with the childish picture she made, struck a chord of memory that set his pulses glowing. Strange, unaccountable excitement! The Marquis de St. Valier recalled an insignificant episode and experienced the awe of one who, at long last, pries from jealous nature some profound secret. Blessed St. Anthony! He had found it for certain—and how clear. A very little girl in a filmy blue dress, whose shining cloud of hair made a halo round her serious face, was looking down at him from an old iron balcony and saying gravely: “Oh, I trust her head is not broken,” or something to that effect.

Of course, of course! He remembered thinking even then that Destiny, sly trickster, had not bestowed such a crown of spun gold for nothing. And here she was, no doubt of it at all—Little Mademoiselle, with her swift mockery and tender heart, was the sweet child whose doll he had retrieved from the dust so many years ago and kept for a talisman.

Lalage thought him offended and herself justly rebuked. “An hundred thousand plagues on my wicked tongue! Monsieur, be gracious enough to proceed to the gate. I fly to unlock it.”

“One moment, mademoiselle. Were you ever in Paris?”

“Why, yes; once. Ever so long ago. At the time of the King’s wedding procession—of course, Papa had business there, anyway.”

“You must have been very young. Much too young to benefit properly by so much pomp and circumstance,” he teased her, aware that dignity was her sore point.

Now it was Lalage who stood startled. Not by what he said, for his words had fallen on deaf ears, nor yet by his presence, since she scarcely saw him—but by what he created for her by the magic of his laughter and something that had flashed up from his eyes. Yet Little Mademoiselle experienced no joy, no thrill of discovery. On the contrary, she wanted to cry. And why not? He laughed at her, and the laughter caught at her heart, holding it fast, and instinct told her it always would, for it had already been so since time began for her that lovely evening when a chevalier in blue and silver rode up under her balcony. A smiling knight of chivalry riding out of the fanfare of crude realities to open the gates of dream for a lonely, motherless child, old beyond her years and lonely with the deep loneliness of solitary childhood! How jealously she had hugged her pretty memory. How many silken webs were spun from it all down those intervening years. Oh, horrid fate! Here he was at last—her prince, this cynical gentleman with a fright for wife! Still, it was something to find him again, and very silly to ask more of playtime dreams. So she said brightly, much too brightly: “I was quite old enough to love the mules, rows and rows and rows of them all jingly-jangly with silver bells. But I must go.”

Gracious! what a witch, thought De St. Valier, seeing her drop from sight and in no time at all wave to him from the gate. Jean, who had a genius for turning up at the right moment, came to take the Marquis’ horse, and with scarcely a glance at the gentleman, trudged off muttering to himself. Lalage, demure as a wood belle, and very like one in her full-flounced skirt, pointed to a bed of blue and white flowers and, glancing slantwise at her guest, said: “A pretty combination, monsieur, is it not? Blue and silver, colours of the King’s men. You were there, of course, in the shining circus, smothered in glory and covered with stars?”

“As to stars, I cannot say, though comets might fit the case; I was there making up the tail. The dust of glory may have covered me, I seem to remember it covered everything else. But, to be frank, my principal recollection is of the two old frights in my care. Dear ladies, Paradise has since received them.”

Mademoiselle tweaked the monkey’s ear. “Monseigneur, we hear marvels.” Then, to the Marquis, in shocked tones: “Sir, twelve hours of din and thunder, smoke and glory, and you remember two old frights merely? You astonish me.”

“And a doll,” he amended, wooden-faced, and a shade malicious. “Mummyish sort of thing, carved out of wood, dropped by a child from a balcony as we drove by.”

Lalage was suddenly all for haste. She slipped ahead so swiftly he felt ridiculous trying to follow. He had noticed before that she refused the earthbound tread of mortals and went about in swallow-flights. At the steps of the house she spun round and said waspishly: “I suppose it was a nasty little back-street brat who dropped it. . . . No wonder you scarcely remember.”

“But no, mademoiselle is mistaken. A very sweet little child he seemed to me.”

“He? He?” she repeated blankly, for once surprised out of countenance.

“Ah, yes,” De St. Valier continued sadly, “a gentle creature with a somewhat vacant, button-hole face. I remember thinking such sweet simplicity was not long for this world. So I kept the doll.”

So he kept the doll! She flung him a withering glance, set Monseigneur on her shoulder, and with dignity opened the door. “Monsieur, you are welcome—the more, I might add, since I have heard you express such noble sentiments. Be good enough to lay off your cloak. I see that Jean has laid the fire, almost a necessity in the best of weather in this barn of a room.”

“A most attractive room,” he corrected her, waiting upon her choice of seat before accepting a chair near the hearth. What a creature of moods she was. Meteor-like, she tore through the whole range of emotions, trailing indefinable brightness even in her darker moments, even when she wept. But why the devil had she wept, or if she must weep, why weep atop a wall for all the world to see?

Bringing his gaze down from the mantelpiece he had the misfortune to catch her in an unguarded moment. To look straight into the burning amber of her eyes and read there not carefree joy but extreme bitterness. How sharp her perceptions he was at once to know, for she said, interpreting his glance: “You are right to be astonished. If I had the sense of little Monseigneur, I should chatter the rounds of the clock. It has been represented to me that cats and women are created to purr on the hearthstone. The mischief is, cats have claws and women aspirations. But what in the world can be keeping Jean?” She struck the big brass gong behind her two sharp strokes that set the room vibrating, and resumed with a hint of passion: “You will have remarked what a queer lot we are. Why not? I suspected it myself, even before attending school where the little damsels were so finely strung they fainted from gentility at regular intervals, and never, never soiled their dainty minds with thoughts of anything less fine than themselves.” Again she struck the gong. Then, wrinkling her saucy nose she mocked herself: “There, did I not say we were queer? Who ever heard of proper folk telling the truth. But tell it I will. Monsieur, be undeceived, I wept for no sweet reason. I bawled with rage. Think of it, I wanted to leave the home fires for a masked ball—the naval ball at Rochefort, to be exact, and Henri, the mule, will not take me.”

“Then, if it please you, I shall accept the privilege.”

Lalage stiffened into the hard little effigy poor Henri had fled, and fixed her golden eyes on the Marquis with thorough disapproval: “And what of madame?” said she.

“I beg your pardon?” He resumed the grand manner. “I am, it seems, altogether at sea.” Which was true, for her unprovoked scorn had surprised all else out of mind.

But Lalage was of a stuff not lightly humbled; moreover, she was reminded of the many warnings she had received. “I had not thought it so mystifying, monsieur,” she retorted sweetly. “I refer to madame, your wife.”

“My wife? But I have no wife!” cried the Marquis, realizing for the first time the fullness of his glorious good fortune.

“But, madame—who came with you here?” stammered Lalage, wanting nothing so much as courage to rush away.

“My sister, God bless her,” monsieur pronounced devoutly.

“This is horrible!” Little Mademoiselle was red as a cherry, and by way of shifting responsibility worked herself into a rage. “You might have told me. Well, mayhap you did—you should have told me again. I’m stupid; I never remember names. I never remember anything!”

“For most things there is a remedy, mademoiselle.”

Ah, he was laughing at her again with those cynical eyes of his. She knew it by the catch at her heart, by the joy that rushed through her. Which was foolish and wicked besides—and his voice burned into the depth of consciousness where all her little dreams abode, and claimed them as a shepherd claims his sheep.

He was smiling as few had ever seen the Marquis smile, a warm, intimate uprushing of tenderness. He said: “Well, then, mademoiselle, you have only to exercise that most accommodating talent and forget this very fortunate mistake.”

“How can I forget? You will laugh at me for ever for a silly little prude. Let us say no more about it.”

He took another tack. “But think of the navy. Think of the shining new uniforms calling for admiration. Patriotism demands the encouragement of such splendid effort.”

The corners of her mouth stole up in a quick smile and her hands, in a swift, graceful gesture, tossed away the distressing business. “Well, perhaps it does. Perhaps I might consider going if monsieur will condescend to tell me his name once more.”

Thought he: Here is no time to introduce the devil-possessed De St. Valier! Laughing, he replied: “Eugène Marigny, once of His Majesty’s parade, and your cheerful servant.”

She wrinkled her saucy little nose, looking slantwise at him, and made a pretty curtsy. “Monsieur Marigny, I promise to behave as nicely as the two old frights who found reward in Paradise.”

He was well upon the road again before he remembered that he had omitted to ask her name. She was still merely pretty Little Mademoiselle, and the most haunting of mysteries!

Henri Delouche was in a cheerless frame of mind when he joined his employer in his office in the big warehouse down near the Quay of Our Lady. The Captain was buried in documents, his coloured handkerchief much in evidence, always a sign of mental distress. He glanced up sharply when Henri entered, shoved back the papers, and bawled heartily: “Blow me! By the look of you, Henri, one would never guess the task before you. You look as if a prison term, and not the finest ship our shipwrights ever turned out, was waiting for you. A tidy ship, Henri. With her lines and spread of canvas she should be a hound for speed. Twenty-five guns, my lad—not many, but of decent range. Ha, you should brighten! Look, here lies your licence, only just arrived by special courier. My boy, aside from the score we have to settle, your letters of marque are a sure means to a brave end. You will be an officer in the Royal Navy yet.”

Henri examined the papers, a dull flush mounting his cheeks, but his voice sounded flat. “I should like to feel that your faith is justified, sir. You have gone to a great deal of expense. Captain Gremion, I begin to wonder if I am worth it.”

“Wonder away, it is any fool’s privilege. But what in thunder has expense to do with it? Do you suppose the thought of you on the way to Royal favour does not outweigh any miserable sums the Admiralty demands?”

Gloom notwithstanding, Henri thrilled as he read the names of the men who were shipping with him. Tried Bretons every one, picked by Gremion from crews that had been long in his pay. Yet it was plain his enthusiasm lacked spontaneity. Chagrined, the Captain thumped his desk. “Henri, if I did not know what a lad you are under fire I should say the good God had meant you for an old maid. Don’t tell me you have been quarrelling with that chit again?”

Henri evaded: “I have found a man with considerable skill in surgery to fill the berth on the Serpente as the Code requires. He was on the Medusa. Which reminds me, sir, I hope you change your mind about taking Bertin to Rockpoint House.”

Gremion roared with relief. “So that’s it, eh? Bertin is young, wounded, a proper object for pity, and you’re jealous? Well, console yourself, my lad. Lalage is not the girl to love her father’s enemies!”

“She will not know he is an enemy. She cannot be told . . . and she is very angry with me.”

“God bless me, what a pair! Well, be off, the Porte Intendant has a word to say to you, and his patience is short and mine exhausted long ago. And don’t be a fool, Henri. I know my tricks. This Bertin is no problem at all.”

“He has a clever tongue, and from his babbling, while in fever, I gathered that he suspects something queer in his rescue by the Swallow. I cannot think him any less dangerous at Rockpoint House than at the Sailor’s Tavern.”

“Devil take it, who asks you to think,” cried the Captain, exasperated, “get along, Henri, there is much yet to be done.”

“I realize that, sir. I shall go in a moment. But I should like to remind you of the mysterious stranger who has been seen in and about the tavern so much of late. And, before I forget, Helena sent a message to mademoiselle. She is seriously ill and needs help, and mentioned something about papers.”

He might have fired a bombshell to judge by its effect. Captain Gremion bounded out of his chair, locked the door, and, after peering through the windows to satisfy himself no one was near, exclaimed sepulchrally: “Henri, a cannon-ball had disturbed me less. Poor Helena! But how like a woman to die now just when the fish is about to fry. Well, that settles it, you must hear the whole story at last. But first tell me truthfully, have you not often wondered at the old man’s behaviour? At our little irregularities, say?”

Almost curtly Henri interjected: “I have never thought it my business to question your motives, Captain Gremion. Yet it is true I have come to understand that you must have some reason to hate the Bertin-Tallon Syndicate, for our indiscretions are always directed against them. I did not notice it until after the truce with Spain. It was then you told us that in their case it made no difference—Bertin-Tallon ships were always prey. That set me to thinking over the ships we had destroyed, given no quarter, and not reported—all Bertin-Tallon ships.”

“So you made that observation. Good! But tell me, did you also discover who owns that elastic syndicate, body, soul, and booty? I see you did not. The gentleman is much too fine to have it noised abroad. A duke may come off gracefully plying murder but not trade. However, even angels fall, though this one has not yet reached hell. Now, here is the truth: The power behind the Bertin-Tallon outfit, with its convenient ports in Spain, the Low Countries, and our own good Brittany, is the Duc de la Ferté, and a blacker devil never inhabited human flesh. Incredible, eh? The Duke has a holy reputation now that his shins have shrunk! But you shall hear the tale.

“It began a long time ago before the sea had even entered my thoughts. When, thanks to a modest fortune, I had just purchased a commission and been sent into Brittany with a small detachment of men by Richelieu, who was then engaged in his final squabble with the Huguenot party. We were ordered to the Château de Brienne, then a rich fief which, by right of his wife, had come into the hands of a Baron Larue, a Flemish gentleman who spent most of his time quietly on his own estates near Bruges.

“There was some indication of fresh risings near Brienne, and it was whispered that, through sympathy with his wife’s relations, who were Huguenots, Baron Larue was come to the château in order to support their cause, provide sanctuary, firearms, and means of escape for the rebels. But Richelieu was anxious to restore peace, and we had orders to avoid bloodshed when possible. However, through the hatred of the officers, mostly nobles who were jealous of any power likely to counteract their own, the affair was bloody enough. Of those zealous patriots none was more vicious than the Duc de la Ferté—one of those numerous creatures sprung from the liaison of an avaricious woman and a titled libertine.

“Having come to Brienne, and presenting my orders, signed by the Duke, to Baron Larue, I had my first suspicion of what lay at the bottom of this particular persecution. The young Baroness, a beautiful blonde and the gentlest being, cried out in alarm at the Duke’s name, and though her husband laughed at her, I perceived that the same fear tormented them both. My suspicions aroused, I sought the opportunity to win the unfortunate lady’s confidence. The Duke had set his mind upon this woman, but her father had refused the match and married her to the Baron. But a man cannot act upon verbal confirmation of his suspicion. Besides, what power had I, a subordinate officer of humble extraction, against the Duke? All I could do was to make our guard as little irksome as possible.

“But the thing we feared occurred. The villagers, fired by the fresh atrocities of the Duke’s soldiers, revolted. Horror piled upon horror. People began fleeing into the hills, to the sea, and not a few came to the château, where, despite the danger it represented, they were given shelter. This was the Duke’s opportunity. Arriving at the head of a column of extremists, he demanded the surrender of Monsieur le Baron and all his people, but offered safe conduct to madame and her child, professing a chivalrous reluctance to believe her guilty. At which malicious proposal the poor woman fell into such despair that her people, outraged, threw themselves upon the soldiers, and hell broke loose.

“In the midst of the slaughter I noticed a young man who, like myself, sickened of cruelties, struck only in self-defence—your father, Henri—and, from the moment our glances crossed, my friend. Luckily, the carnage broke out in the courtyard. Agreed upon what we had to do, we took advantage of the frightful confusion and slipped into the château. Outside the Baroness’ door we found Jean, as fierce a guard as ever a woman had. Jean had been reared at Brienne, and, thanks to his knowledge of the place, we got the woman and her child into the hills.

“Sometimes a shepherd’s hut, or a hole in the hillside, afforded shelter, sometimes a cave by the sea. Food was the roughest, our clothes what we had on our backs. The Baroness made no complaint, but when she learned that her husband and all his household had been massacred, she fell seriously ill. We were at that time in a cave by the sea, and, fortunately for us, a storm drove a smuggler’s craft on the rocks near by. One of the crew had some skill as a physician and saved the poor woman’s life, but her mind was never quite right again.

“Grateful for the assistance we had given, the smugglers agreed to take us out of the country. From among the starving refugees that crowded every seaport Jean picked an orphaned peasant girl, Helena, to come with us and care for the invalid and her little girl Margaret. After some months of wandering we settled them in a hamlet near Arles, and began to take stock of ourselves. Soldiering was obviously out of the question, so we turned to the sea. Luckily for us an able-bodied man was not asked to sign a polite register in those days. A fierce, adventurous game it was, Henri, and I soon loved it.

“And time works miracles. Peace returned to the provinces. Your father and I opened a small business by way of testing Richelieu’s tolerance. No obstacles were put in our way. We prospered, and extended the business, eventually building and sailing our own ships. Your father married, and, to please his wife, settled at St. Malo, her old home, whence he directed our trade.

“I kept fairly close to the sea, yet made a point now and then to visit the unfortunate lady at Arles. On each occasion Helene had graver reports to make. The poor Baroness was almost as obsessed with fear for her child’s future in her lucid moments as she was obsessed with fear of the past in her hours of madness. It was heartrending to hear her alternately weep to be separated from the child and wildly demand she be sent back to her people to be educated as befitted her station. The scenes grew so painful that at last we were forced to tell her that sword, block, and prison fever had long since wiped out her kinsmen, their estates reverting to the Crown with the exception of Brienne, which was bestowed upon the patriotic De la Ferté!

“She accepted the bitter fact quietly but something snapped at the roots of being and she took to her bed never to rise again. Through the tactful co-operation of the parish priest, who wrote at her dictation, and had the good sense to have a doctor pronounce the poor soul sane at the time, her story was documented and her signature properly witnessed.

“When the Baroness died, your father and mother took her daughter, Margaret, into their home, an ideal arrangement if heredity had not ordered that the little girl should daily grow more like her mother. We began to suspect the danger this might represent when Helena, who always took the little girls to and from school, was stopped one day by a strange gentleman and closely questioned concerning the child. When we discovered that the Duc de la Ferté, who rarely left the Court, was convalescing from illness at Brienne on the sea, we immediately packed little Margaret off to a convent.

“The Duke went back to Paris and, wars breaking out afresh, did not return. Three uneventful years passed and Margaret came home to enslave us all. She was now about fifteen years old, of a lively temperament, quick sympathy, and extraordinarily like her mother. The rest is difficult to tell, Henri—there came a day when the Duke returned to his château and by evil chance saw Margaret out walking with your mother.

“After that the poor girl had no peace. You may wonder why we did not lay the case before the Crown. But consider. The great Cardinal and the King he had served were both dead. Our Louis was yet a child and Anne of Austria far from secure. It was no time to ask the Regent to execute sentence against one of her rich supporters. But to the story: In spite of our vigilance Margaret was abducted and taken to Brienne. Once again Jean’s knowledge of the old château served us to good effect. But Margaret was so terrified by her experience that for no better reason she discovered in me, rough fighting privateer, some glamorous hero . . . she thought she loved me. Certainly I loved her. So we were married and I broke the rules of the sea and took her with me on a voyage through the Mediterranean.

“There is little more to tell. We made what joy we could of it, putting into port here and there. Margaret took a child’s pleasure in queer Oriental places, affected exotic clothes and a Moorish veil. I think she was happy . . . she had not time to regret her bargain. She died when Lalage was born.

“You know the rest, Henri, how for years I left my baby with Helena in St. Malo until she was old enough to go to school. How, after the plague carried off your parents, that same summer storms wrecked so many of our ships, you came to join us at Rockpoint House. Remember how happy Lalage was to have you, Henri? Until you came she hated the new house because Helena refused to leave her Brittany for any palace. And now she looks for new mansions——”

Henri, who, during this astonishing recital, had turned the ghastly colour of bleached earth, cried out sharply: “My God! Those papers, Helena’s papers, they are madame’s proof? They show, justice prevailing, as one day it must, that mademoiselle is not only an heiress but a titled lady in her own right?”

Deep in his musings Gremion nodded. Henri rushed on wildly: “Am I right in understanding that you amassed wealth, monsieur, as a means to power in order to break the Duke at his own game and put mademoiselle in a position to claim the title of two ancient houses?”

The captain recovered himself with a start, shocked at the young man’s expression. “Right enough, Henri. But ancient houses are not everything. There are stronger ties. Now look here, Henri Delouche, why the devil do you suppose I told you all this? To be a death sentence? God bless me, what a fellow! First it is Monsieur Bertin. Now high connections put you in a fever. But listen. All that concerns you is this: I have information to the effect that Monsieur le Duc’s only son, the Comte Courcel, is to be put in command of a new frigate and this frigate sent to conduct a convoy of grain ships from the Levant. I also have reasons to believe we are on the eve of another war. The grain is valuable—but more valuable by far the capture of a frigate under Monsieur le Comte. You understand?”

“Captain Gremion,” Henri was very pale, “I more than understand. I shall think of one thing only—Monsieur Courcel’s frigate and my duty to be done!”

Lalage sat on a round iron stool before the huge kitchen fireplace and watched Maria filling the brick ovens with mounds of white bread. “Your baking is a miracle. I shall never manage it, my buns are like bricks.”

Maria, slow-moving and solid as a mountain, turned her flushed face from the glowing ovens to smile at the flatterer. “Pretty little ladies should not bake. It stretches the hands. Your father would not like it, not he.”

“Your leg is better now, is it not, Maria?”

“Saints love you, yes. How should it not, the way you have fussed over it?”

“And you should love a black silk dress for church, would you not, Maria?”

“Mother of God, silk? Me in silk, mademoiselle? The good father would doubt my virtue.”

“A plain heavy silk, Maria, with a little touch of white lace, and a discreet bonnet,” pursued the tempter calmly, reaching for a hot cake from a bake-stand at her elbow. “And I think you need a new cloak, too, Maria. One must celebrate the return of health. Everything is celebrated these days. The Paris papers tell us that La Montespan has just celebrated the heroism of a gentleman who saved her white mice from the jaws of a common cat which had been smuggled into her apartment by some jealous nuisance.”

“Mademoiselle, you should not speak of such things. La Montespan! Another queen to load with jewels while millions starve! For celebrations I have no heart. A soldier’s daughter knows their worthlessness. Weedleblah, I call it, stuff and nonsense to fool the young and make the old forget their misery.”

Lalage winked at Jean who was just entering with a pail of red apples. “Maria, you astonish me. For my part I dote on celebrations. Everyone feels important. Besides, consider how many fools grow wise by virtue of their uniforms. But you must see for yourself, to judge rightly. You shall have a dress and a cloak and bonnet, and, in the cause of justice, attend me to the Rochefort ball.”

Her pans safely deposited and the oven shut, Maria fanned herself with a floury apron. “Saints preserve us, mademoiselle! I must be growing deaf, I hear nothing a-right. Ball? Rochefort? What nonsense! Who ever heard of a young lady going unbidden and alone to such an affair?”

“But I am bidden and I shall not go alone. A gentleman comes for us, good dame, and I shall have the sweetest dress money can buy.”

“Impossible! You but jest, mademoiselle.”

Lalage stamped her foot impatiently. “Impossible do you say? Am I such a fright then? Well, but I do not jest. I am going and you go with me.”

Maria sat down heavily. “Jean,” she appealed to her brother, “say something. It is madness. I to be a chaperon? A fat old woman with red hands! They would kick me into the road.”

“Be quiet, Maria, little mistress likes her jokes.”

Lalage wrinkled her impertinent nose. “True, else how should I love two such ridiculous old people? Fat old woman, indeed! Many a duchess is fatter. Moreover, were you not a most respectable governess to good little misses before you turned cook to please us when Jean’s wife died?”

Maria could only groan and Jean, thoroughly perplexed, scratched his head. “But, mademoiselle, did you not say Henri would not be back in time for this celebration?”

“I did. And now I say that Monsieur Marigny has had the kindness to invite me to the Rochefort ball.”

“The man is a stranger. You cannot be serious, mademoiselle. Why it is impossible—it is not to be thought of. It is not——”

“Yes, yes, I know. It is not done! No lady would think of it for a single moment and Papa would be furious. Oh, an hundred thousand pests upon you all! Good little girls do so and so—well, what has that to do with me? Make up your mind to it, Maria, and you too, Jean. I shall go and no amount of argument will stop me.”

They entertained no doubts on that score, but were spared the confession of defeat by Hector’s abrupt entrance. Since Lalage had given him asylum he had enjoyed the freedom of the lower house and ran a thousand errands for the old couple. Now he burst in panting, every red hair on end with excitement: “Oh, mademoiselle, I was in the woodlot looking for our pigs when Jacques the shipwright came riding by. He said there had been a fight near Rochefort and a wounded man left in the road——”

“Oh, my poor Henri! I knew he expected trouble!” cried Lalage.

“But no. It was not he, mademoiselle. Jacques saw Monsieur Delouche set off in his fine new ship from La Rochelle harbour.”

“Well, why do you frighten us then, Hector? Oh, I thought for sure it was he and I sent him away angry—for mercy’s sake what is it, Hector?”

“Jacques said not to scare you, mademoiselle, I am sorry. He said Monsieur Gremion had been in the fight; the wounded man kept muttering: Gremion, they got him, they got him. Jacques ran to a farm for help, but when he came back someone had taken the man away.”

Lalage turned to Jean. “What do you make of it? Tell me the truth, Jean. For weeks I have suspected something wrong. And of course I discovered long ago we are not respectable folk though Papa hopes by keeping me in darkness to make an exception of me. What did Colbert’s men come here for? And why has papa so many of his ships registered in the names of others?”

“Who told you all this nonsense,” growled Jean, “some idiot you saved from merited starvation, doubtless. But hark, someone comes riding up the hill.”

The someone was Gremion himself and no pretty sight. His face was scratched and bleeding, his arm in a sling, his clothes covered with mud. Lalage said nothing till he was restored to decency and comfort. But then, snuggling close, she said: “Dearest Papa, why not tell me everything.”

“But what is there to tell? Jacques is an ass. We sailors are always squabbling. Ask me instead about Henri who has sailed away to make fame for his sweetheart.”

“Are you sure it is fame, Papa? Tell me this, are you quite unhurt—you could lose your temper, darling, and not suffer?”

“A dear daughter, this! Look for yourself, a flesh wound in the arm is nothing much to boast about,” he chuckled. “A clever devil that fellow in black who gave it me.”

“Well, let us to my case then. It is serious enough. Papa, you are not doing me a kindness by keeping me in ignorance and like a prisoner. As long ago as boarding-school I knew we were queer. The other girls had visitors, places to go, folks; I had only money. I had not even a mother. . . . O, Papa, did you think I should never suspect there was something wrong even there? Why every time I asked about Mama Helena turned pale. I used to make stories about it in my head. But when I grew older I realized it must have been a tragedy.

“I liked it here at Rockpoint House after Henri came. Peaceful and sweet; no more queer men coming at night as at St. Malo—my poor, and my little house of bread, these were so pleasant. But now the old fear and mystery are back. Henri acts like a guilty man and you deliberately deceive me. I refuse to put up with it, Papa; either you tell me the whole truth or I break with Henri and go away from here.”

Gremion sat stunned. “Child, this is madness. Henri loves you better than life. Lalage, it is impossible to explain the ugly things men meet in life. And if we led a somewhat peculiar existence, so did thousands of others who were victims of the civil strife. Trust me—and for God’s sake do not mention her again.”

She was swiftly sympathetic. “Dearest Papa, just this. Is it on her account you hide me, her name represents danger?”

“If not actual danger, my child, then malice of a kind that stops at nothing. I thought to have the mischief over soon, but of late I have felt the pressure of a secret force working against me. Someone is hard on the heels of all I do.”

“That fight in the road, Papa?” She was pale but remarkably calm.

Gremion brought out the big handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “A puzzle, Lalage. Do you remember the Medusa?”

“The pirate ship? But of course. You took a wounded man from her and brought him to La Rochelle to be cared for at your tavern. Wasn’t he the captain of the ship the Medusa destroyed?”

Gremion nodded. “You have too good a memory, daughter. The fellow was coming on nicely but lonesome. It was my intention to bring him here for a few days. Imagine my feelings on coming to the tavern, after seeing Henri off on the Serpente, to find the place a wreck. It looked as though a cyclone had swirled through it. Over the wreckage stood the tavern-keeper wringing his hands, half out of his wits with fright. He told me a fellow in black had been hanging about the place for weeks but never creating a disturbance; a queer chap who always ordered burgundy and recited verses like an actor. Monsieur Bertin had once or twice dragged himself out to hear him.

“But this night the fellow swarmed down on the house with three devils who started a fight with the sailors, and while they wrecked the place away went the gentleman in black with Monsieur Bertin.”

“Papa! You need not go on. I can guess the rest. You rushed after them and got yourself nearly killed by that black fellow. But now explain this: Why should anyone kidnap Monsieur Bertin? Were you keeping him prisoner, Papa?”

Angry red mottled his face. “You read too many silly stories, Lalage. Did I not just finish telling you I saved him from the Medusa?”

“Sure yes. But not long ago you and Henri were discussing shares in the Medusa—how am I to correlate that?”

“Ha, fine logic, my pretty inquisitor! And what object would there be in risking my neck to rescue a man off my own ship?”

Strange mixture of gentleness and steel, she held to her point: “For one thing, Papa, you might wish to fool the captive. It is as easy to play friend as enemy. But never mind, here comes Jean with dinner; afterwards I will sing for you and tell you what a bad monkey Monseigneur is and how quickly Hector is learning his letters.”

When she thought him sufficiently soothed and restored to good humour she opened her second attack. “Papa, I am set on a lark. I want very much to go to the ball at Rochefort and Monsieur Marigny has had the kindness to ask me.”

“The devil he has! And who, pray, is this scoundrel, and where did you meet him?”

“Here, Papa, thanks to your abominable roads.”

“Shiver and sink me! I will hear no more about it. A gentleman does not take advantage of a father’s absence and propose such an escapade. The fellow is a blackguardly rascal!”

“A what, dearest?”

“God bless my soul, you need a spanking. You forget I am your father. If I say he is what he is, he is, isn’t he? Why, the wretch may even be a kidnapper of women!”

For no apparent reason Lalage suddenly lost colour. “Papa, going back a bit, what did that man in black look like?”

“Well, blow me, Lalage Gremion, do you take me for a cat that I should see in the night? Ask me the complexion of his sword and I might answer; a quick, dark man, and a thousand are that, and thousands more wear black.”

She ran to him, laughing, and hugged him joyously. “But of course. And now I can go to the dance and get me a dress with an hundred thousand frills and flounces? Oh, but it is quite all right, Papa. Maria goes with me, and Hector as postboy. Think how effective his red head will be above a green jacket. We shall be very grand really.”

Madame Rainville had just seen the Countess la Barre whisk away in a cloud of dust. At her elbow Angeline stood tapping the leaded window-pane with impatient fingers. “I wish you would not do that, my dear,” said the old lady, less brisk than usual. Angeline stopped drumming.

“I was thinking,” she replied. “I have a good mind to sell my emerald. I need a new gown, to say nothing of slippers, lingerie, and cloak.”

Madame Rainville, leaning heavily upon her cane, crossed the uncarpeted length of hall and at the door of her own chamber paused to say drily: “Come along, I can listen better where it is less draughty.”

Seated in her favourite chair she continued: “Don’t stand; I detest being talked at from a height. You want a new dress—may I ask why now particularly?”

“Because I have promised to attend a ball, Grandmother.”

Madame raised incredulous eyebrows. “You astonish me, Angeline. Why this secrecy about it? Why let Madame go off in a huff at her brother for neglect, if this be true?”

Angeline flushed palely. “I cannot see that Monsieur le Marquis’ neglect has anything to do with me. I was thinking of Monsieur Freslon and the ball at Rochefort. He will send his coach for us. Grandmother, but we must have dresses; not necessarily very fine, for this is only a charity affair, though you, it seems to me, should have something good.”

Madame Rainville folded her veinous hands upon the head of her cane and for a rapt moment gazed up at the image of Honoré. In the flickering candlelight his smile assumed a roguish gleam. It was as though he had winked suddenly and quickly retired behind his everlasting graciousness. Angeline hurried on about the colours she preferred and the shops most likely to be reasonable. Madame nodded at the picture. “You seem to have it all settled,” she said, turning to her granddaughter. “Dress, hair, shoes, and lavender for me. But it won’t do; I cannot tolerate the beastly colour. But that aside, where will you dispose of your poor little emerald to make this transformation?”

“Where you disposed of our other jewels. I am nobody’s fool, Grandmother, I recognized your earrings in Monsieur Freslon’s collection.”

Madame Rainville made no outward sign of the spiritual revolt she suffered. “You could do that, Angeline? It would not seem curious to accept his invitation afterwards?”

“Curious?” Angeline caught her up sharply and began striding about as was her habit when disturbed. “Curious? No, nor do you mean that, Grandmother. Let us be frank. Beggars cannot afford to quibble with opportunity. Freslon is a man of destiny; the right connections will bring him to Court, his intelligence will do the rest. You will be agreeably surprised at his manner.”

“I think not,” Madame retorted drily. “One’s capacity for astonishment has limits. Am I to understand, Granddaughter, that you contemplate following the emerald?”

“Why not? Is there a better alternative? Think of it, we shall take our places in the Capitol. Instead of ignorant peasants and bleak poverty, we shall be surrounded by wealth and the foremost men and women of the day. Oh, what cannot that mean in future happiness!”

Madame struck the floor sharply with her cane. “There, there, no rhapsodies. I am too old for them. Too wise, after rearing your father, my dear, not to recognize the inevitable. But I hold out against lavender; nor will I permit the sale of the pendant. There is still some silver-plate, quite unsuited to Versailles, but solid enough to fetch a gown or two. I suggest we leave it at that.”

Angeline did an altogether strange thing then. Quickly, as a little child, she dropped to her knees beside the old lady. “Grandmother, oh Grandmother, help me do it well, decently . . . nothing else matters much now.”

Left to herself, Madame Rainville smiled at her husband. “Honoré, it is high time you took me out of this. I no longer understand anything—least of all the fickle human heart.”

Which did not prevent her presenting a good case to Monsieur Freslon when he called. They liked each other at once; they understood each other.

“Madame,” said he, the moment they were alone, “I shall not attempt to conceal my real purpose—I had not thought to marry until I saw your granddaughter. Orphaned, almost in infancy, my origin is, however, not what you may suppose. My father was an officer in the army; of my mother, let us say merely that the convent received her before my advent and there she died. . . .”

She checked him with a gesture. “Monsieur, I respect your honesty. But being a very old woman who no longer reasons according to the flesh, I prefer intuition to explanations. You will be a good husband for the simple reason that you have been good at everything else. Angeline, on the other hand, will be a questionable quantity. She has not your experience in the market-place. I do not think she will bring you happiness, but she will bring you Versailles, should that be your ambition, and you, monsieur, guarantee the coach and four.”

She liked him better for the red that mottled his face when he responded. “Madame, words are sorry gratitude. I had not thought to be so well received—something else I learned in the market-place. I shall not forget it. Therefore permit me to suggest that anything acceptable to yourself will more than satisfy me; I speak of the marriage contract.”

She studied him quizzically, amusement lighting her sharp old eyes: “That is fortunate, monsieur. Angeline’s dowry might not be so cheerfully received by a less generous wooer. It is, in fact, nothing more than a romantic gesture. A stone, monsieur, an emerald—one might call it crystallized green fire.”

Henri Delouche, on board his own ship, was a very different man from the dejected lover Lalage knew. He had not won his captaincy for nothing. He was fearless, cool-headed, and a conscientious sailor, sure of himself and what he wanted. And no one knew the treacherous coasts of Brittany or the lucrative channel better than he. His fighting record was impeccable. As a boy he had feared gunfire and been cured by the hardy expediency of being lashed to a mast during battle. Since then he had accepted bloodshed as he accepted storm. It was part of the sea.

He was kind. He had a way of serving others unobtrusively, and he accepted his new position in the same quiet manner. Consequently, when the Serpente spread her canvas and stood out to sea in the pearl-grey light of dawn, no captain ever had a more willing crew. And if in happy augury of future success, the Serpente captured a small Dutch trader before nightfall. Standing back to port, Delouche handed over his first prize and with the next tide set sail again.

He decided to follow the shoreline northward, keeping a look out for fishing convoys from northern waters and traders standing towards the channel. Two days’ bad weather and thirty-six hours of fog dampened the first flush of victory, but on the morning of the fourth day his look out signalled sail in the offing; two merchantmen flying the Dutch tricolour. Henri shortened sail and ran up a Dutch flag. Unsuspecting, the two merchantmen steering clear stood on in the stiff breeze doffing their colours. To their amazement up came the white flag of France and the Serpente fired a shotted gun across their bows.

What action followed! The merchantmen, carrying rich cargoes, and under command of able captains, were not the sort to strike their flags easily. Their guns, fewer than the Serpente’s, were none the less of good range and weight. But Henri had his own fierce reasons for wanting to test the mettle of his men and guns. Four hours at short range the artillery duel continued; Delouche slowly working his ship so as to lay her alongside the Dutchman in order to carry her by boarding. Finally, her mainmast shot away, the enemy vessel refused to answer her helm. This was Henri’s opportunity. Bringing the Serpente to her weather quarter, he lashed her forerigging to the aftershroud of the Dutchman and at the head of his Bretons dashed aboard.

The deck was already strewn with wounded, but the captain rallied his few remaining men to a last stand. But except for doing them honour it was wasted effort; in less than half an hour down came the Dutch tricolour, the French flag taking its place in the morning breeze. The other ship, smaller, her spars shot away, her hull badly gutted, had given up the fight and was settling low in the water. Delouche signalled her captain to swing out boats to save her crew.

Despite this loss Henri was satisfied with his capture. The smaller vessel had carried a considerable fortune in gold and jewels, on its way to a bridal chest, which was saved. The other ship carried a cargo of spice and sugar. Henri’s men were eager to return. To ask more of a first venture was unlucky, said they. But Henri was otherwise minded. What he wanted was neither gold nor jewels, but a shot at Monsieur le Duc’s convoys. The problem was settled simply. Henri cut his own crew down to the smallest possible number and sent the rest back with the prize.

After putting in to an island port for fresh provisions and water, Henri stood northward hugging the Brittany coast, confident that opportunity lay in that quarter. Rain and fog, so dense the ship seemed to be cutting through banks of grey vapours that stretched on into deepening mystery, were interpreted gloomily by the superstitious sailors. They had asked too much of a new ship! Night falling, the lights of the Serpente painted yellow quivering streaks on the foggy in-hemming walls, and the re-echoing clang of the bells made a dreary muffled protest. Captain Delouche knew his waters, but for all that the Serpente rode at anchor waiting morning and a rift in the fog.

Dawn produced one of those miracles possible only at sea. The swirling walls lifted in graceful ascending columns leaving the sea glass clear to reflect the bluest sky that ever burned the tapers of the morning sun. And out on the horizon stood a brig all sails set and on her prow something that made Henri cry out suddenly. Wisely chosen, his first mate had served on the infamous Medusa. A stocky fierce-eyed man, too quarrelsome and independent to have attained this position in regular channels of trade. Pierre Gremion made use of many such. Henri, pointing to the brig, asked abruptly: “What do you make of her?”

The mate grinned. “The same as yourself, Captain. The double-headed falcon of the Bertin-Tallon line; not much of a catch even if she were under enemy colours.”

“Clear for action,” ordered Captain Delouche.

The mate saluted. “What flag, sir?”

“No flag and no quarter.”

The brig, as he had supposed, was better equipped than was usual in ships of her size. She was carrying oil from Bergen, manned with good guns, and was a smart sailor. Hopeless though it must have appeared from the start, she put up a bold, well-directed defence and managed to inflict considerable damage upon the Serpente. This, Captain Delouche discovered with dismay when, the little brig subdued, he saw bearing down upon him a frigate under French colours.

Not a man but understood their predicament. To run up his colours now was to proclaim himself not only pirate but traitor; to plead he thought France already at war with the Low Countries would not explain his defiance of universally accepted marine etiquette. Whatever their procedure now, the charge of piracy would be laid against them. Henri entertained no illusions as to the penalty. Colbert kept a jealous eye on his budding marines: discipline, obedience, efficiency, these his gods. His punishment would be swift for one to whom he had so newly entrusted Letters of Marque.

Henri showed his real mettle. “Men,” he said, his grave voice a little roughed by emotion, “with main and mizzenmast damaged, flight is out of question. We have then the choice of immediate surrender and trial on shore or a fight to the finish. Considering how little cause you have to trust me, I do not feel entitled to make the decision . . . but there is such a thing as victorious defeat.”

A brutal-looking lot they were, standing there in the morning sunlight, grim, blood-spewn, their blackened faces upturned to their captain. But not a man thought of himself; to none of them death was any great matter, it was always just beyond the next breaker, its mocking voice in every wind; the tragedy was for their captain. The first mate expressed their idea perfectly when he shouted: “Hell, Captain Delouche, men are we, not rats! A hail for the captain and our good black guns!”

The frigate was standing after them, her canvas crowded on. To her blank cartridge the Serpente paid no heed, nor did she heave to when the frigate fired a second shotted gun. The crew on the Serpente was busy fitting stump-masts and making what repairs time permitted. Her guns were ready, her Bretons waiting; Captain Delouche looked them over proudly; evil-looking devils with hearts undaunted and, if truth be told, simple as children. They laughed, making wagers one with another, crossed themselves, and cursed the frigate. But under this jocular looseness terrible forces stood in check. Henri smiled; here were men in whose company it was good to meet the Great Adventure. He no longer thought with regret of his doomed ship; his private fortune could make that good. His duty was clear.

A shout from the look out identified the frigate. The Saint Martin! One of the smartest ships-of-the-line; and here she was bearing down on him as determined as Nemesis. Time was come for action. Delouche ordered the Serpente to stand across the Saint Martin’s bows and when she was within short-shot, discharged a broadside which swept the frigate from stem to stern. Obviously the ship-of-the-line had not expected such impertinence, and before she could retaliate Henri, bouting ship, stood once more across her wake and sent out a second broadside.

This quick deadly action caused the greatest confusion on board the Saint Martin. Sails and spars piled over her sides blinding the guns on her main deck so effectively that the Serpente had poured out another broadside before her guns came into play. Knowing the temper of his crew, Henri was determined to board the frigate. The commander of the Saint Martin, now thoroughly aroused, was just as determined to prevent it. But his best defence notwithstanding, the Serpente worked close enough for the grappling irons to catch in his shrouds and, worse luck, his best men were manning the lower-deck guns which gave Delouche ready access to the upper deck and a decisive first blow.

Leading the attack, Delouche made straight for the silver-braided commander; young like himself, but obviously new to a rolling deck, he none the less proved a deadly swordsman, quick, expert, and alert. But Henri, thanks to Gremion’s training, had more than a sailor’s rough defence; his play was swift, coolly calculated, and powerful. He more than held his own. Seeing their commander hard pressed, two gallants joined arms with him, which might have spelled swift disaster for Henri had not a terrific explosion on the lower deck pitched them apart like so much cockleshell.

One of Henri’s men had set off a powder keg, his own life forfeit to the splendid mischief. The havoc was frightful; the deck a shambles, and smoke and fire spreading rapidly magnified the horror. For a terrible moment neither side made any move. Then, as if some secret springs of savage hate had been loosed, they sprang at each other with trebled fury. All but the captain of the Saint Martin. The mêlée raging, he calmly went below and liberated a dozen shivering prisoners he was carrying to La Rochelle and, himself directing, set them at fighting the fire.

The danger arrested, he took the upper deck with relief. The fight still raged with little odds on either side. If these were typical pirates, God help the navy, thought he. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined men like these, human devils bent on annihilation. It was sheer madness. Here was his beautiful ship-of-the-line burned and gutted, the better part of his men dead or dying; at this price victory was too dear. The captain of the frigate called a truce. It was what Henri had fought for and for which he was ready to die.

Face to face at last, tattered, dirty, blood streaming from many flesh wounds, the two captains exchanged formalities.

“Sir,” the master of the Saint Martin addressed his enemy with solemn dignity, “heroism such as yours deserves a better cause. Your name, if you please, monsieur?”

“Captain Delouche, newly assigned to the Serpente, a privateer carrying Letters of Marque.”

If he was astonished the other gave no hint of it. “Captain Delouche, it must be as clear to you as it is to me that to continue this struggle is a reckless waste. As the Comte Courcel, charged with the fate of the Saint Martin and my men, I propose an honourable truce.”

Henri stood petrified, the blood in his tired aching body seeming to congeal like ice about his bursting heart. The Comte Courcel! Monsieur le Duc’s son. . . . The shock of the welcome discovery swept away despair and weariness. Now let him perish! He had lost his ship, but at least he had struck his blow and stood his ground; the Comte had not so proud a victory of which to make report to Monsieur le Duc!

In a voice ringing with confidence, he said: “Monsieur le Comte, permit me to disagree. Honourable death is much to be preferred to dishonourable liberty.”

The roar up-welling from the crew at his back left no question as to their terrible loyalty. Monsieur Courcel was thoroughly convinced of their desperate purpose. But, strange anomaly of nature, Monsieur le Comte was as anxious to prevent useless bloodshed as his father had been eager to promote it. He replied: “Captain Delouche, I concede the point. It is said that every man has his opinion and must have his price. Monsieur le Captain, for the sake of our wounded, name yours.”

“A price you will hesitate to pay, monsieur: my crew to escape if they can in the Serpente. The prize and myself surrendered to your hands.”

“Never! Never!” shouted the Bretons, “to the devil with such terms.”

The Comte took rapid stock of the situation. Extreme though the demand appeared it represented little actual loss. The Serpente was a battered wreck carrying no cargo. The prize, on the other hand, was something—the capture of Captain Delouche much. And, if he rejected the demand, those crazy savages would inflict such damage as none might survive. His mind made up, he replied courteously: “Monsieur le Captain, I commend your honourable gesture on behalf of your men and I agree to your terms.”

Silence, inexpressibly moving, reigned for a moment over the terrible shambles. Even the groans of the dying seemed to hang suspended, waiting some final tragedy. With a stiff bow Henri presented his sword. The young Comte flushed.

“Keep it, monsieur,” said he, and quickly turning aside, ordered the ships cut away.

Monsieur de St. Valier congratulated Freslon very cheerfully upon his suit of Mademoiselle Angeline. He had no doubt but the lawyer’s highest expectations would be fulfilled. However, what really concerned him just then was a certain report. Said he, passing his snuff-box to the radiant Freslon: “What about those ships, monsieur?”

Freslon summarized: “Eleven destroyed or subjected to ransom, all Bertin-Tallon ships. Only two reported their destroyer. The Medici, sailing from Archangel, was plundered by a fast pirate answering the description of the Maid of Bretagne, once Gremion property; and the Countess Ann, gutted by the Medusa.”

“This Gremion,” pursued the Marquis, “is he not just a name to screen the activities of several adventurers? Whenever I have invaded the Quay of Our Lady, the Captain was elsewhere. At his tavern men shrug, Gremion? Who knows where he may be—in the Baltic, or Africa, or perhaps no farther away than Nantes.”

Freslon laughed. “Oh, he is real enough, monsieur—I almost added genuine enough. So, too, is his daughter, although some doubt it because he keeps her hidden behind those high walls of his.”

Monsieur de St. Valier experienced a nasty turn, a humiliating sensation of guilt. When he had grasped to the full the bitter significance of it he turned to Freslon, and his voice had the bite of steel: “May I inquire if Monsieur le Captain’s house stands hard by that abominable road one often mistakes for the Rochefort highway? A place where the poor gather in a most delightful garden?”

“Monsieur could not mistake it, there is none other like it in the country. A huge place and a true paradise to the destitute, for mademoiselle maintains some sort of institution they call the House of Bread. I should not like to think of disaster overtaking Little Mademoiselle.”

“No more should I.” The Marquis spoke curtly, yet a glance of his eyes, as he hurriedly got to his feet, moved Freslon to something like astonishment. His hand on the door-knob, monsieur further increased his speculative interest by adding: “I am in haste, Monsieur Freslon, and cannot go into the matter, but I shall ask you to keep the kindly sentiment in mind. I may have occasion to remind you of it.”

Back in his own rooms, dressing for the ball, Monsieur le Marquis spent a miserable time with his conscience. He felt debased, cheaply sordid; an intolerable state of mind. And every least sound set him into a fever of fresh distress thinking that here were his messengers come to tell him of Captain Gremion’s capture.

He had thought the fellow a crafty mountebank unworthy his steel, that night on the road when their blades crossed. That Gremion had escaped by a trick had not diminished his ill opinion. None the less, monsieur wished himself out of the dirty business and thought with savage distaste of Freslon’s damnably efficient staff. Whatever this Gremion was, Little Mademoiselle persisted a sweet incredible mystery and refused to be set aside for any cause whatsoever.

The more he tried to pity her the more insistent and clear grew the memory of her laughing lovesomeness. And when he thought that so much charm and sweetness might be flung upon the mercy of a cruel world, he felt actually sick. How well he knew the flattering indecencies which would be offered for her protection! And all this was his doing. Until he began piecing together bits of ancient gossip like an old woman a-quilting, no one had troubled to relate one incident with another. No one had gone to the trouble of tracing down old ships and sailormen with this deadly exactness—O, a fine thing he had made of it!

But whatever his mental anguish he must put on hypocritical gaiety with his satin and laces and with what grace he could proceed to play the last act to its finish. The drive seemed interminable; the lovely landscape full of brooding mischief. And when he finally arrived under the walls of Rockpoint House and discovered that the gate stood open for him he shuddered. Mademoiselle in her childish trust invited disaster in this careless fashion. Then he caught the sound of rippling peals of laughter and a scandalized voice crying: “Mademoiselle! Oh, you will ruin your slippers. Come, mademoiselle, you must finish dressing. Mademoiselle——”

Maria had seen the carriage and curtsied stiffly. “Have the kindness to enter, monsieur. Mademoiselle Gremion is in the garden. I will tell her you have come.”

Which proved unnecessary; Lalage came flying round the corner on a drift of silk flounces, Monseigneur tucked under her arm. Seeing the gentleman she fetched a little bow, wrinkled her saucy nose and laughed delightsomely. “Now you know the worst, monsieur. I scamper about the green, climb walls, weep for nothing, and have no manners! But Monseigneur, the little villain, ran off with my pearls. And do you now have the goodness to wait a tiny little while and I shall come back tame as a bear upon a string.”

When she called to him from the stairs some while later, his heart almost stood still and all the troubled and troublesome thoughts faded from mind. The gulf between them, Gremion’s piracy, his own fine pride, all this lost significance. Little Mademoiselle, radiant and dear, smiling down at him with her warm golden eyes, was the one reality. He sprang to meet her. Not quite sure of herself she gave him her hand, glancing up at him slantwise and then, mischief breaking through, said: “But I am frightened half to death, monsieur. You are so very grand—almost as grand as when you made up the tail of His Majesty’s parade.”

In the carriage, moving through the autumn wood, her playfulness merged with friendly gossip. She was bubbling over with little confidences. Here, she pointed out a clump of trees in whose shelter a footpad had waited to fall upon Henri; and there lay the pool to which goatherds brought small flocks. A place she often visited to get news of the needy. Or it might be a flower, half-smothered in dust, that recalled some happy incident. Only once was her cheerfulness touched with scorn. A peasant, driving a gaunt horse, made way for the coach, and catching sight of mademoiselle, burst into blessings.

“From Rainville, poor fellow,” said mademoiselle. “I had the wickedness to give him a sack of meal. Mademoiselle Rainville would call it unheard of impertinence.”

“Mademoiselle Rainville may not understand,” the Marquis hazarded, moved by some ancient tribal loyalty, “and they are very poor.”

“No one is too poor to be kind. Consider, I gave the village children a picnic and Mademoiselle Rainville sends me a letter forbidding meddling. Meddling! Monsieur, you should have seen the fun they had. And all so sensible, too. The girls made soup in a big pot Jean hauled into the fields and Maria told them how to go about it. The boys wrestled and raced and made neat bundles of firewood to show their usefulness. Oh, I could weep to remember the joy they had sitting down to eat. No, monsieur, you cannot persuade me Mademoiselle Rainville is not stingy when she will not even give a little time for happiness at no labour to herself. Which reminds me,” she continued more grave, “of the De St. Valier. How I wish I might get hold of them.”

“For why, mademoiselle?”

“For Hector, he has an ear for music and a longing to play the violin. I would have him taught if they would give permission.”

“I should feel inclined to say they would,” he told her seriously.

“You know them, monsieur—and have let my tongue disgrace itself?”

“I do, mademoiselle, after a fashion, perhaps not as well as I should.”

“You could tell me if it is true, as Papa heard, that Monsieur le Marquis’ sister is back in St. Valier?”

“I believe she is.”

“Oh, had I only known before Papa left for St. Malo I could have asked him to stop at the château on his way back.”

So Gremion was gone to St. Malo. Monsieur suffered a wretched sense of treachery. Here he sat playing friend to Little Mademoiselle while her father was heading straight into the net he had spread for him. With some faint hope of extenuating discovery, he said lightly:

“You surprise me, mademoiselle. A fond daughter should not permit her father to visit that wicked city!”

“St. Malo a wicked city? Poof, wonderful, I call it, the way her sailormen spit in proud England’s eye! But you cannot know St. Malo as I do who lived there all my childhood. I remember its curving sea-line, its dark mysterious caves; I remember Saint Thomas Gate and the narrow Street of the Jews. Poor Jews, how I wept to see them driven forth each Holy Week. Oh, I should like to visit the ‘Dancing Cat’ again, but Papa will not hear of it. Never a city had such queer places; think of a name like Gluttony! How it made me shiver, for I thought it a den where fat men ate little girls and growled afterwards like the poor bulldogs kept chained all day and released to guard the shore at night. Queer, quaint streets for queer, quaint people; the Street of Butter, of The Broken Drum, and the Street of Dames of Light Habit . . . how terribly shocked the good Sisters were when I asked about that.”

“It is cold,” said Maria with decision. “Monsieur, have the goodness to close the window.”

But mademoiselle would not have it; no dusty glass should obscure her first sight of Colbert’s model city all dressed up for the ball. And there it was at last, a little checkerboard set on a promontory above the river. “Oh, dear,” sighed mademoiselle mischievously, “if it were not for the lights, monsieur, I should never guess where the blessed are to gather. No, I am mistaken, there is a little difference—the barracks has a bulge and the church a spire . . . and I suppose that gloomy pile against the sky is the fine new prison!”

Mademoiselle Gremion, emerging from the cloak-room in a shower of filmy green and gold, the shining cloud of her hair a halo above the intriguing oval of her small masked face, was an instant sensation. Without her mask she would have been terrified for, sauciness notwithstanding, Lalage was simplicity itself at heart. She knew she was pretty, but had never even thought of comparing herself with the beauties whose conquests were every-day gossip.

But there was no denying the stir she made; the effect, even more noticeable in the small select group which, holding itself politely aloof, proclaimed at once its condescension to charity and its superior status. Dowagers sat up straighter. Fans moved more languidly in graceful white hands; gallants lost the thread of conversation and very young men forgot propriety and frankly stared.

None of which pleased Monsieur le Marquis and, unfortunately for both of them, while Little Mademoiselle instantly sensed his chilling reaction, she could not interpret the true cause. So now mistaking the Marquis’ hauteur she responded with as cold a dignity and glance.

“You dance the minuet, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

She danced very well. The Marquis had often danced better. But then his mind had not on those occasions been vexed by a dozen fears and impertinencies. Every time he caught a man’s eye roving in mademoiselle’s direction he foresaw trouble, and cursed the selfish egotism of his class. However, when the minuet ended, they had both recovered a gaiety of sorts and the Marquis was little pleased to relinquish his dainty partner to a much-braided and over-eager individual who proudly announced that, mask notwithstanding, he had recognized her instantly. Her hair, her voice—Ah, how could he forget, when she had sung for him so sweetly at Rockpoint House! Well, here was flattering comfort. Of course she remembered the young officer quite as well, even to the songs he had most admired. Thereafter time flew. The lieutenant, to his intense disgust, was besieged by fond friends whose affection he had never guessed, all dying to meet Little Mademoiselle who danced as gracefully as thistle-blow and made heavenly music with her laughter.

Monsieur le Marquis, in the meantime, consoled himself after his own fashion, flattering the dowagers and settling their hopes soaring by pretty attentions to their daughters. All of which bored him tremendously until he discovered amidst late arrivals Freslon’s party, and instantly captured old Madame Rainville and led her to a secluded seat in the gallery.

“Well,” she challenged him forthwith, “what have you been up to now, monsieur? Come, come, why try to fool an old body like me? But I have eyes and use them, my dear Eugène. I had not been five minutes in the room before I recognized the pretty little girl, about whom the gallants cluster, for Mademoiselle Gremion, and of course I knew you must have brought her.”

For once at loss, he said inanely: “You think her pretty?”

“Tut! I think exactly as everyone else in the room, that the child is delightful. Why not present her?”

Perhaps because something in him fought against surrender or because he resented anyone’s attempt to valuate and appraise Little Mademoiselle, his reply was surprising even to himself: “Is it customary, madame? Other things aside, you know of course that she is the girl who meddles at the village.”

“Rot! My dear Eugène, if I thought you meant what you imply I should frankly despise you. Snobbery makes splendid pastime for fools, scamps, and nonentities, but for those of us unfortunate enough to possess an ounce of brains how frightfully tiresome. Besides, all things duly considered, Monsieur le Marquis, the miserable truth remains, men get nothing more gratifying out of life than the love of a pretty woman. And that holds true for a De St. Valier as well as the rest.”

The Marquis excused himself blandly and withdrew more disturbed than he had will or wish to acknowledge. Madame watched him dodge the smiling daughters of ambitious mamas with a wicked gleam in her bird-like eyes. Intent upon her own thoughts it gave her quite a jolt to hear close at her elbow a fierce little whisper: “Madame, may I presume to speak?”

It was Little Mademoiselle, come from round the big potted palms, a small golden fury with blazing eyes, who, waiting no permission, exploded: “You had the kindness to ask about me, madame. You shall have the truth. I should not have been here at all except for my impertinence—Monsieur le Marquis had not demeaned himself to bring me. Madame, I cannot have you believe he would! But, yes, he brought me for I had the bad taste to ask it—but monsieur saved his dignity by misrepresenting his name!”

Madame liked this elemental fury, guessed the cause of it, and was far more disturbed by the haunting beauty of the girl’s eyes and gestures than by what she said. “Sit down, my dear. And if I might offer a suggestion, never expect men to be anything but fools in matters of sentiment. Also while we are being so intimate and agreeable, may I ask just why the poor—even my poor—call forth the devotion a dozen gentlemen would give their heads to merit?”

Her hot anger replaced by exaggerated gloom foreign to her sunny nature, Lalage replied with melancholy listlessness: “What else is there, madame? But you would not understand . . . cut off as I am from every class of society, always alone, it is difficult to realize that little things are not significant. A boy crying with hunger; a mother with a dead child—old men with no place to lay their heads, these assume immense importance. For I am not religious, madame, these things offend me; I see no works of God in any of it.”

“Tut, tut! What blasphemy,” madame chuckled. “I perceive you are a miserable sinner—a creature of spirit who thinks for herself. How abominable! But here comes a swain determined to drag you off. Oh, yes, before I forget; I should not attribute Monsieur le Marquis’ gesture, in bringing you here, to charitableness. After knowing two generations I have yet to discover a De St. Valier who acts from any motive but his own desire.”

Lalage suffered herself to be led away by a stout young man in snuff-coloured velvet who talked in gasps and danced in the same sporadic fashion. He thought her divinely attentive; she never heard a word. He thought her lovely beyond telling; she never guessed his features. She smiled at him winningly because a curative thought had sprung like a flower out of the weeds of despair. Her anger done at monsieur’s deception, she remembered what awful things she had said about the De St. Valier. But yes, it was obvious he could not have spared her a bitter humiliation and at the same time confessed to being the last De St. Valier into whom the devil had got!

No, mademoiselle saw nothing of the fat man’s adoration, but Monsieur le Marquis, dancing with Angeline, did, and was so much disturbed he answered that jubilant young lady in the affirmative without in the least knowing to what he had agreed.

“And you may trust me, cousin,” she was purring, “to use every bit of influence I can bring to bear upon the question . . . it would be good to have you back with us again, Eugène.”

Not having the remotest idea to what she referred, but being sufficiently recovered of himself to be cautious, he thought it safe to reply: “But you are always right, cousin.” And was not a little amazed to be rewarded by a quick pressure of her fingers and the ardent whisper: “Ah, I should have wished to be always right to you, Eugène.”

An annoyance which was quickly forgotten when, a little later, he went to claim Mademoiselle Gremion for the minuet, and in place of cold glances was welcomed by the familiar mischievous smile. “Monsieur le Marquis, have the patience to sit down. I am much too faint from my discoveries to rise to the occasion.”

He gave back as good as he received. “Ah, mademoiselle, you forget the devil in De St. Valier; do not tempt the creature, for pretty ladies are his special fare.”

“Nevertheless, sit down. My feet are none the better for dancing with a pasty-faced Satyr. Besides, now we can settle Hector’s little affair. Monsieur le Marquis, you will not object to my care of him?”

“Not if the wretched De St. Valier may be permitted to retrieve something of lost virtue and contribute to the cause.”

“Of course, monsieur—and now shall we dance?”

Never a minuet like that. The strains of it tangled in their heart-strings and wove into the deathless fabric of the dream in which they moved. Mademoiselle, glancing shyly at the Marquis, thought of Rene, the troubadour king, who chose to sing of love in lowly places, yet could take up his sword with the best. The Marquis, thinking of nothing in particular, watched Little Mademoiselle jealously, as one watches delicate flowers trembling in a rising wind, hoping without conscious thought that the sweetness of the moment might be prolonged for ever. In accents she had never heard upon that cynic tongue of his, he bent down to whisper: “Mademoiselle, I am almost sure there is a moon. I know there is a balcony beyond which runs the river to the sea.”

Her swift upward glance was a lovely fire. “But would not that be rash, monsieur? I have heard the night air blamed for many diseases.”

“And for so many joys!” he retorted. “Mademoiselle, believe me there is nothing half so rash as saying no to happiness.”

She laughed, trying to avoid the serious undertow. But the rapture of his voice was wine to set her heart afire. A little frightened, she said, and he could feel the tremble of her sweet body to his own undoing: “Very well, monsieur, let us see this wondrous moon.”

The balcony, on which they found themselves, was a temporary affair screened in by green boughs and so thickly dotted with palms and oleanders and broadleaved foliage plants as a greenhouse. There were many seats and most of them occupied. The Marquis grinned and Little Mademoiselle pinched his arm to make sure he was real, for had he not grinned up at her just so that lovely day when she had dropped her doll. The splendid soldier letting the perennial boy in his heart shine through! “Oh, you were right,” she whispered, “it is lovely here. How wonderful—I did not know the river was so wide. And there lies Colbert’s little fleet.”

“Very beautiful,” monsieur agreed, seeing neither river nor caring the least for Colbert’s fleet. Seeing nothing but those golden stars, mademoiselle’s eyes, and drinking in as the sweetness of flowers the indefinable charm of her dainty self; knowing her as the love for whom his heart had waited, yet might never possess!

But why not? suggested pride, still unyielding—liaisons were neither strange nor necessarily vicious. . . . If he should somehow save her father—shame struck at him swiftly. To entertain, however little, such mean bartering possibilities was to slay this tender love. . . . Fool! How the gossips about Court would snicker at such fine moralities—Monsieur de St. Valier suing for the affections of a chaste bourgeoise and terrified lest she yielded!

As if to test the thought, a couple came pacing by. The woman, evidently enjoying a bit of gossip, concluded as she swept by: “Of course madame did not blame her. A pretty girl with no prospects cannot be expected to refuse the attentions of the Comte!”

The Marquis glanced anxiously at Little Mademoiselle and she as quickly at him. “Why should she not refuse?” she demanded in the imperative way he had come to know.

His gesture was eloquent, his smile disconcerting. “Surely silks, jewels, and a carriage and a house are a consideration.”

“But what of self-respect, monsieur? What of affection?”

Because he rejoiced in the spirit flashing from her eyes he must of course proceed to plague her. “But, mademoiselle, you yourself set great store by white bread.”

She was indignant. “For those to whom it represents an unattainable luxury, yes. Oh, you laugh at me, monsieur! Everyone laughs at me when I grow serious—nevertheless, I should not set so cheap a price as jewels and a carriage upon my self-respect!”

“Perhaps the lady was misjudged. She may have demanded love besides,” he baited her, and had for his trouble the stinging truth.

“I think not. Those who traffic profitably understand the limits of barter. Love is neither to be bought nor taken.”

Adorable little firebrand, he longed to catch her up and carry her away, down to the quiet bosom of the river where, under spell of moonlight, they might drift into a kindlier world all their own. But what madness may have trembled on his lips was never spoken. Into the teasing, music-laden peace about them, came a thunderous booming that reverberated dully through the dark. Cannon! Ship’s cannon! From all sides couples crowded forward pointing down-stream. And there, gliding into port, was a hulking monster breathing smoke and fire with, in its wake, a second hulk whose lantern eyes burned redly.

Lalage was girlishly curious and, like all the others, eager to rush down to the quay to see the ships dock. Monsieur le Marquis called for his carriage.

“Ah, here you are,” said a brittle voice at his elbow. “Monsieur le Marquis, we have hunted for you everywhere.”

Angeline Rainville flashed her ravishing smile, completely ignored Lalage and, tapping the Marquis’ arm playfully, added with pointed emphasis: “Monsieur Freslon thinks this noisy demonstration presages victory—your victory, monsieur.”

Bearing up in the wake of his brilliant fiancée, Freslon caught sight of De St. Valier’s face and intervened hastily: “Pardon, but here come the carriages. Shall we go, mademoiselle, before the crowd gathers?”

Over her shoulder Angeline flung back: “Join us on the quay, monsieur—when you have quite concluded your little affair.”

What cannot inflection make of innocent language! Monsieur de St. Valier experienced pinpricks of violent anger and the un-Christian desire to wring Angeline’s fine white neck. Little Mademoiselle looked straight before her, all her delightful naïve joyousness shattered.

That she had her own shield of pride and sword of defence, she soon revealed: “What a pity to sacrifice so much sense and sensibility on Monsieur Freslon who has so little beyond wealth and wisdom to commend him!” she remarked, coolly enough, in a clear, hard voice.

“Quite true, my dear, quite true.” Unobserved, Madame Rainville had come up behind them. With charming intimacy she took Little Mademoiselle’s arm, affecting to lean upon it from need. To the Marquis she vouchsafed a quick sardonic smile. “Astonishing—the pretty ways we have?”

“Possibly, if I understood,” he retorted with more grace than graciousness.

She chuckled wickedly. “Tut! More’s the pity if you don’t. But let us go. I presume you do not object to adding sprightly company to your carriage? I am burning to see these modern sea-monsters, but not in Angeline’s company, who pretends to understand marine mysteries.”

It is doubtful whether any of them could have told with any degree of exactness what followed. Arrived at the quay, all was noise and turmoil; the ships had docked. Monsieur de St. Valier had just handed the ladies out of the carriage when Freslon strode up, excitement written large upon his usually inexpressive countenance.

“Ah, Monsieur de Marquis, we are in luck. It is the Saint Martin, and the pirate taken! Monsieur Courcel, who is himself wounded, begs to be relieved of his responsibility.”

There was no misreading monsieur’s pleasure, for his immediate conclusion was that this might put Gremion’s case in better light. “Good! I shall attend Monsieur Courcel at once. The prisoner can be removed to the guardhouse.”

He stopped, thunderstruck. Mademoiselle, as though suddenly bereft of her senses, had broken from madame’s arm and was tearing through the crowd and flung herself upon the breast of a dishevelled young man who was being conducted forward by an armed guard. Her wild cry: “Henri! Henri!” did not startle the prisoner half so much as Monsieur le Marquis, to whom a swordthrust had been sweeter.

“Oh, Henri,” she sobbed, her little hands exploring his face and arms and breast, “Oh, bless God you are not hurt! Your eyes, Henri, and your hands. . . . Oh, I could not bear that——”

It was like some harrowing scene from a play. No one moved; the soldiers stared stonily ahead. Henri, his hands tied, could only submit to these caresses he had so often dreamed of wooing, and whispered huskily: “Don’t cry, dear. It is nothing. I assure you, darling—Lalage, you must not weep for me.”

Enough to rouse the old Lalage: “And why not, Henri Delouche? Why must I not weep for those I love when they are despicably used?”

A flaming fury, she faced the curious crowd, and her eyes espying Monsieur de St. Valier approaching beside an officer, her anger found justification. “Oh, look well at us! We are the common folk you despise; we dare to be human. We love and we weep for no better cause than ourselves. We trust each other and sometimes we even move together, which makes us terrible.”

Never so golden, so unearthly bright, her eyes fixed upon the Marquis in whom thought seemed to be suspended and every physical sense crushed. “So I was right about the De St. Valier after all! I was right about everything except my faith they might be somewhat better. I was wrong to think one of them could see even the least of us happy and not destroy that happiness——”

More terrible to the Marquis than her rash tirade was the sudden breaking that followed, the sudden blighting fear which blanched her face and whose origin he alone could guess. Like a flower broken on the stem she swayed on her little feet. “Mother of pity,” she moaned, “those questions—oh, now I understand. Henri, dear Henri, take me away from these awful people. . . .” But it was the Marquis who caught her as she fell and deeply pitied poor Henri his helplessness. He was like a doomed figure out of ancient mythology; a giant unaware of the force in him and the most terrible when his bonds should break.

“Well, well, have you all lost your senses?” Madame Rainville’s sharp staccato accents and sharper tapping stick broke the silence and galvanized activity. “Put, her down, monsieur,” she ordered impatiently.

Monsieur Courcel flung down his cape, and all his life was to remember that pale golden girl lying against the dark blue folds of it.

“And now, monsieur,” continued madame in tones calculated to carry far and with effect, “have the goodness to disperse the crowd.” Then, less stentorian but no less brisk and forceful, she continued: “Take away the prisoner before mademoiselle recovers. Order the carriage forward. No, the coachman is all the help we need. And be quick about it.”

“Madame is right.” It was Henri who spoke. Mystified and miserable, he perceived nothing clearly but the necessity to spare Lalage further pain. “Let us make an end. Madame, do me the kindness to tell her from me she need not worry.”

She was touched, pitied him deeply; but a glance at De St. Valier affected her more and rekindled waves of long-forgotten agony. She would have liked to express her sympathy, but what De St. Valier had ever suffered that? Instead she said abruptly: “Be off, be off—all of you. Monsieur Freslon, where is my granddaughter? Ah, there you are, Angeline; have you my spirits? Good. No, I do not need you here. Go on ahead and inquire after mademoiselle’s chaperone.”

Thanks to which wise precaution Lalage recovered consciousness in the seclusion of a dim carriage and found about her the kindest arms and heard a friendly voice consoling: “There, there, little one. Nothing to fear. It is I only—old madame.”

“What have they done with Henri?”

“Nothing, child, nothing.” Madame was mildly disappointed at this proof of properly placed constancy and affection, which was rank heresy of course. The girl was sensible to keep to her station. None the less Lalage behaved with rather too much fervour for such a sensible paragon. She shot bolt upright, her little hands pressed to her heart.

“But no! You are shielding me. They have taken him to prison. . . . Oh, my poor Henri.”

“Tut, tut! I myself have been in prison.” Madame patted her shoulder. “Thanks to our splendid laws most folk go there soon or late. It is like the measles, disagreeable, but by no means the end of everything.”

Lalage scarcely noticed who attended the carriage that stood waiting for her outside the hall. But Maria recovered of the fright she had sustained and, boldly on the defensive, questioned the coachman as closely as though she stood his judge at the gates of heaven. Nor was that enough. She must verify his statements by referring them to Freslon whom she knew by repute as an eminent man of unquestioned integrity. She had often heard his name brought up with wonder in her governess days.

Monsieur Freslon with perfect composure and absolute honesty assured her that he personally had picked the escort for Mademoiselle Gremion. But he omitted to add that Monsieur le Marquis had instructed him to do so.

To none of which Lalage paid attention; her thoughts were otherwise engrossed and her chief desire to leave the scene of her distressing experience as quickly as possible. Out of the humbled disconnected medley of memories she was frantically trying to reconstruct something whole and intelligible; something to give meaning or bent or point, some possible solution to the problem confronting her.

Some things she perceived too clearly for hope of easy explanation. For instance, she counted the chief terrors on her cold little fingers: First, Henri was arrested as a pirate. Second, monsieur had suspected him, which meant that Henri had broken the Code before. Third, Henri had never been out of Papa’s employ.

Little Mademoiselle shivered and ordered Maria to command more speed. She must get home. She must have quiet to think. However wrong Henri had been he must be saved. Oh, why had Papa rushed off to St. Malo! Why, indeed. . . . Back came the wild fear which had completely overwhelmed her at the quay. On the road to Rochefort monsieur had shown unusual interest in Papa’s movements and St. Malo, and how she had babbled! But no, not Papa! She hugged the solitary hope; Papa had always been charitable and kind and helpful to so many worthy poor. God would not permit the ruin of a good father. And then the thought of monsieur’s tracking Papa was so infamous she shuddered at herself to conceive it. With fierce insistence she told herself again and again that even a De St. Valier could not do that. Yet why not? Unromantic logic mocked her—why not—if Papa was involved in Henri’s offence? Oh, how slowly the carriage ground along! How like eternity this agony of anxious moments. “Maria, why must we crawl along?” she cried. Maria said nothing until the familiar gently rising hill and the dark bulk of Rockpoint House loomed before them. Then with unfeigned relief poor Maria exclaimed: “The good God be praised, we are almost home.” And a little later: “Look, mademoiselle, Jean’s lantern at the gate; he may be old, my poor brother, but God gave him good ears.”

Jean had other as keen senses; perceptions born of intuitions nursed in solitude and strengthened by use. No need to tell him the world stood on edge! Grumbling irritably, he received mistress and escort alike. Maria he ignored completely; Hector he ordered away with the horses.

Lalage went directly to her room leaving Maria and Jean to see to Freslon’s men. But when they had been sent away refreshed and rested, she demanded to see the old man at once and proceeded to pour out her tangled tale.

“Oh, Jean, what must we do?” she cried in conclusion, “only you can help me. You know so much more than you are willing to admit. You have been with Papa so many, many years. Oh, Jean, dear, I am afraid to put the question I should ask.”

“You mean you are afraid for Monsieur Gremion, that he stands in danger—what kind of danger do you fear?”

His bluntness hurt her. The quick blood dyed her little face and her hands flew to her cheeks as though to hide the flaming banners of shame. “Yes—terribly afraid he may be arrested like Henri,” she faltered. “Jean—was Henri acting under Papa’s orders?”

Jean temporized: “Mademoiselle, young men, the trustworthiest, sometimes misinterpret orders.”

All her latent resentment against being treated like a child, put off with stupid evasions, flared up at blundering old Jean: “Stop! I refuse to be diverted by nice generalities. Am I a fool to be fed on white lies? Oh, what misery we might have been spared if I had only known the truth. Yes, had I known the ugly truth of what Papa and Henri were really doing, do you suppose I should have risked betraying them by intercourse with decent people!”

“You go too fast. Monsieur Gremion is an extraordinary man, a good man. What he does is justly done, depend on it. Mademoiselle, great crimes often go unpunished until some generous heart is stirred to put down evil. But what concerns us now is Henri. Hector thinks he may be taken to Freslon’s lodge. The guardhouse at Rochefort is in process of building, it is unlikely he will be kept there. If we are to help him it must be done before he is brought to trial.”

“So you knew!”

“No, mademoiselle, but I could guess. Hector told me the rest.”

“But what can you hope to do, dear Jean, unaided and alone?”

“If you have the courage to remain here with Maria, there may be something our friends the miller and the blacksmith can help me do. Hector has gone for them, mademoiselle.”

She crossed to him swiftly, and, her hand upon his arm, she said: “Oh, Jean, what a loyal heart you are. And of course I have a little courage, too, . . . but, Jean, can I do nothing but sit here and wait? What about money? Henri will have to leave France; for that he must have funds. There is my own income, Jean, I could sign that over to Henri.”

“Time enough for that later, mademoiselle,” he assured her gruffly, eager to be away once the question was decided. “Do you but keep the house and let none enter the gates—troubles rarely come singly.”

The Comte Courcel was disappointed in the Marquis. He had heard so much of the dashing De St. Valier, of his exploits in war, his ingenuity and courage, his gallantries and unfailing wit and humour. He found him merely hard, a typically disillusioned gentleman. He supposed he made a splendid figure in the eyes of women. What man might judge of that?

Henri Delouche was more to his liking despite the difference in their estate and the discredit of the charge preferred against him. Captain Delouche was unaffectedly human; simple, obvious, and a brave fighter. Henri entertained a similar opinion. Monsieur le Marquis he frankly hated on sight. That Lalage held him responsible for her disillusionment he could not quite understand. But in spite of the gorgeous satin, the fine white laces, and occasional jewels, Henri recognized in monsieur the stranger whose presence he had resented at the Sailor’s Tavern. He had mistrusted the gentleman then, in his sombre black, with his easy cynicism and sometime flights of amusing verses. His mistrust was doubled now, for whether he was real in the role of Marquis or of the tavern habitat, in either case he merited suspicion. For why should the Marquis de St. Valier stoop to espionage? And for what but mischief would an adventurer parade as a nobleman? These thoughts occupied him on the way to the guardhouse and still occupied him as he faced Monsieur de St. Valier in the anteroom to answer his questions. Monsieur Courcel, Monsieur Freslon, the warden, and the temporary guards were also present. The warden complained of no facilities, no properties for carrying on this oldest of human comedies. Monsieur le Marquis stemmed the lament by expressing complete satisfaction. Bench and table, writing materials, and the prisoner—what more need justice require!

Messieurs Courcel and Freslon seated on either hand, he proceeded with his queries:

“Captain Delouche, you are, we assume, fully aware of the charge preferred against you?”

“I had the misfortune to lose my ship,” Henri returned with quiet dignity.

“You have the greater misfortune to stand charged with piracy, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

Henri remained silent. Monsieur Courcel’s good opinion increased; Monsieur le Capitaine was not visibly disturbed. The Marquis’ running fire of questions continued and still Henri kept his head as square upon his shoulders as when he parried Monsieur le Comte’s sword. Monsieur de St. Valier studied the prisoner narrowly. It would have required divine intuition to detect either sympathy or anxiety in his cold probing glances, yet he wanted to discover merit in Delouche. He resumed the catechism haughtily:

“It is my duty to remind you, Monsieur le Capitaine, that the charge is grave. Colbert, acting for His Majesty, is determined to put an end to practices leniently dealt with heretofore. I urge you, Monsieur le Capitaine, to consider carefully how you answer in your defence. . . . Monsieur, on whose responsibility did you engage the Saint Martin?”

“My own, Monsieur le Marquis.”

“You carried Lettres of Marque, monsieur?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Marquis.”

“From His Majesty, Louis XIV of France?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Carrying French Lettres of Marque, you attack a French merchantman and a frigate flying a French flag?”

“Monsieur is misinformed concerning the merchantman, and the Saint Martin sent us a broadside.”

Freslon frowned. He was amazed Monsieur le Marquis should permit such trifling and evasion for no better purpose than the wasting of valuable time. But to the Marquis these evasions represented a loyalty of which he wished to make sure. Fully alive to Freslon’s impatience and Monsieur Courcel’s longing for pleasanter quarters, he hastened his queries, none of which appeared pertinent to the issue and served to confirm Freslon’s poor opinion of noblemen in general, though he had thought rather better of this one in particular. However, in conclusion Monsieur de St. Valier put a satisfactory question:

“Monsieur le Capitaine, can you deny that the Serpente is Gremion property?”

Henri replied promptly: “The vessel is Gremion property, but the commission was mine, Monsieur le Marquis—the responsibility mine also.”

“In other words, you absolve your patron from any part in these proceedings and are satisfied to have the charges placed before the Admiralty in that precise character?”

There was no misreading Henri’s immense relief. A much too cheerful liar, thought monsieur, as he watched the prisoner led away to his temporary cell—a decent fellow really.

“Monsieur le Marquis,” Freslon offered discreetly, “may I suggest that Monsieur Courcel be relieved of all further responsibility and permitted his much-needed rest?”

Monsieur de St. Valier was a little short. “So far as I am concerned, certainly. And no doubt Monsieur Courcel will obtain leave of absence while the Saint Martin stands in for repairs. Monsieur le Comte, I congratulate you upon your excellent service.”

The young Comte could not but feel flattered. Boyishly he responded as they left the building: “From Monsieur le Marquis that is praise indeed, and encourages the hope that others may overlook my blunders.”

Monsieur de St. Valier laughed. “Monsieur le Duc, for instance—a fond father can be unreasonable in matters concerning a son’s future.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he resumed: “No doubt Monsieur Bertin got in touch with you at Brest.”

Monsieur Courcel was enthusiastic. “Indeed, yes—very ill he was at that. Monsieur le Marquis, I understand the documents he forwarded are not only important to this case, but of infinite value to Monsieur le Duc my father. I am honoured to be entrusted with their delivery and shall proceed to Paris by the first stage-coach, which, considering my wounded condition, I judge to be safer than risking the road on horse.”

“I wish you pleasant furlough, monsieur.” The Marquis had become most affable, but explained that certain dispatches required his immediate attention at his rooms. Monsieur Freslon must present his excuses to the Rainvilles, and Monsieur Courcel his greetings to Monsieur de la Ferté. “But,” he added, “I should not wish to have Monsieur le Duc consider my findings complete or final. For instance, when preparing those papers I was ignorant of Captain Delouche’s activities. Which raises the nice question whether Gremion can be held responsible for everything laid at his door. Monsieur le Comte, I trust you find the road as safe as you require.”

Madame Rainville entered her room with a brisk step, her eyes sparkled, her face seemed actually to radiate light. And when she flung back her cape and sank into her chair she seemed to her astonished granddaughter to have cast aside years in the mad interlude which to Angeline had seemed so tiresome and offensive. Young and strong, and, as she supposed, free of nerves, it was she, not the aged lady, who looked pale and shaken. It was just another of Grandmother’s unreasonable behaviours!

“Really, Grandmother, you astonish me. To look at you one would think that being attacked upon the road was a tonic.”

Madame kicked off her new slippers and indulged the undignified luxury of wriggling her cramped toes. “So it is. I never witnessed a better scrap. Never. Monsieur Freslon surprised me; but then men of his class often put us to shame. And that ugly old brute of the bristling brows was too much for your fancy fighters. Ha, he recalled the days of my youth; gory, brutal, beastly days, Angeline; but heavens, what men we had! Oh, go to bed, you look washed out. Heat some milk and go to bed.”

“Grandmother, I have seen that red-headed boy somewhere before. I am almost certain he belongs at St. Valier.”

“Tut! Beggars belong where they find bread. By the way, how soon will we, who belong at Rainville, be seen in the Capitol?”

Angeline bit her lips, those sharp white teeth of hers like pointed asterisks on pale red damask. “You know very well that Monsieur Freslon waits upon Colbert and that we hope to be on our way in a fortnight. Tell me, did you believe what those fellows gave for their excuse?”

“That they had mistaken Freslon for a mountebank who had palmed himself off as a tax-gatherer and robbed their village? Certainly not. But it was a good lie, Angeline, and let us off with heads intact.”

“Well, who were they after, do you suppose, armed to kill like that?”

Madame yawned discreetly but persuasively. “Ah, there you have me, Granddaughter. Well, unhook me, my dear. I feel myself sagging back into ragbag age; what a fate for a decent backbone! Better get to bed quickly yourself.”

The next day Madame Rainville stayed in her room. Angeline rode to the village, where she had arranged to meet Freslon or his deputy, who was to help her with several small business matters. Madame did not expect her granddaughter to return before night and so with no fear of critical interruption yielded herself to vagrant memories. From an ivory case kept hidden at the bottom of a closed chest she retrieved her secret treasure. Honoré’s love-letters; written in such odd corners, under such severe auspices, yet every one a sparkling document. In the midst of campaigning, in hiding from political enemies, in temporary exile, always he had remembered to represent for her the comedy of existence as man made it, the sweetness of it as love and God intended.

How right it now seemed that he should be the one to smile serenely from the dim past and she, poor caricature of what he once had loved, be left to laugh at foolish would-be slayers of dreams. In a kind of passionless paradise where the fragrance of emotions lingered sweetly, she sat reading her precious letters, toying with quaint little keepsakes; bits of ribbon that had once held flowers, strange amulets, and oh, so many medals that once had shone bravely on Honoré’s young breast. Set apart she might be yet how close to him. This was imperishable joy spun from dear, dead earthly passions and the banners of eternal dawn.

She was roused from these musings by the sound of prolonged knocking, muffled by many thicknesses of intervening walls. Insistent knocking this. And what could be the matter with the servants? Was that Breton workhorse as deaf as she was stupid? But at last, after what seemed interminable delay, she heard the heavy plodding tread of her domestic on the stairs, and a moment later in popped a puzzled face past a cautiously opened door.

“Madame, there is a man below. He says he must see you. He will not tell his name and he will not go.”

Madame brightened; thanked heaven that Angeline was out, for now perhaps she might taste mischief once again. “Well, send him up. Tut, what is there to fear? A stick of an old lady without influence or wealth is safer than the angels. Send the man up.”

Nor was she the least disturbed when the visitor entered; a big brisk man whose dark beard and disordered hair were slightly peppered with grey; a keen man hinting of sea and hard adventure. He was dusty, but well dressed, and as she instantly perceived, had the stiff manners of men trained in arms. More she could not see for the room was full of shadow and he stood at a respectful distance.

“Well, monsieur, to whom am I indebted for this happy interruption?”

“You are Madame Rainville?”

She liked his booming big voice. “I have that honour. And you?”

“Captain Gremion, madame; which means nothing. But should I mention Brienne and Villon, how then, madame?”

Contrary to his assumption madame was sufficiently disturbed by the first confession. That Little Mademoiselle’s father should come in this mysterious fashion was astonishing in itself. But Villon—Brienne . . . she repeated the names in hushed half-frightened tones as one might the names of dead returning in a vision. With some success she recovered herself, enough to say peremptorily: “Sit down, monsieur, sit down. I never could endure being addressed from heights. And have the kindness to be explicit. I am no longer young, my mind travels slowly and mysteries confuse me.”

He accepted the chair she indicated. Despite the thing nearest heart, he could not help thinking what queer tricks the years played upon mankind. Pursuing the thought, he said: “Madame, more years ago than we need stress, I had the pleasure to remark to Monsieur Rainville that none had a lady more worthy of brave deeds. It was on a May morning, madame; you stood at a stone gate, a small son in your arms, to see us off. . . . Your laughter followed us like music.”

Madame, leaning forward pressed hard upon her cane. Joy and pain were real again and life had meaning. “Ah, now I remember. . . . Mother of God! But yes, you are Villon. I remember your eyes—you brought me the news that other dreadful time . . . the fatal news from Richelieu. It was you stood by me when Honoré died.”

She checked herself, not that this ancient grief, with which she had lived on friendly terms so many years, had now the power to overwhelm her; but because a new revelation had presented itself. As though it had been yesterday she remembered the gay young Chevalier Villon, so very different from this seasoned grizzly captain, and her husband’s fondness for him. How often Honoré had said Villon would end up Marshal of France. And now she could guess why he had accepted the commission to Brienne.

“Monsieur, you put me to shame. You bring home to mind my bitter selfishness after Monsieur Rainville’s death, hiding myself away from harm, all to the ends that my son might recover the favour his father flung away for honest principles. I had not the decency to inquire what became of his men. But you, monsieur—you went to Brienne because you sympathized with the lost cause and Honoré’s poor relatives. Ah, do not deny it—but, forgive me, monsieur, if I ask why, with such a record of courage and loyalty, you choose to become Captain Gremion?”

“It is for that I have come, madame. But first I must decline so much praise. Richelieu pardoned me that first time because I was useful as a fighter and paid well for my officer’s commission. He would not have been so lenient with a deserter, and desert I did at Brienne. And now, madame, may I ask if you ever suspected that any of Monsieur Rainville’s kinsfolk might have escaped?”

“But no, it could not be. Hatred and bigotry are too tireless. Why, monsieur, even my son, the child you saw in my arms, did his best to oppress the remnant of a cause so dear to his father . . . as for the De Brienne, their enemies were too powerful for any of them to escape.”

“Madame, you are mistaken!” Gremion himself trembled hearing the belated confession, and felt himself a fool putting into words thus lightly that for which he had sacrificed honour and almost the whole of life. Madame blanched, and her thin transparent hands trembled upon her cane. But she was not so distressed as jubilant. She lived again. Her mind leaped to conclusions and the blood raced in her veins. She understood. She had no need to ask who this off-shoot of Honoré’s race might be. She knew now why Little Mademoiselle had seemed dimly familiar; her golden eyes had probed to the submerged memory of the beautiful Comtesse de Brienne, gladdening the heart as that lovely lady had stirred all hearts long since.

Bluntly, Captain Gremion told his tale, denying heroism, fortitude, and sacrifice, and breaking into anger when he came to poor Helena’s dying. What a trick to play on him—for none had more deserved to see the game through to a successful finish than Helena. To die now, how like a woman! Besides, she was his star witness. Gremion admitted without apology that ever since his wife’s death his sole thought and purpose in life had been to amass a fortune sufficiently large to permit a concentrated attack upon Monsieur de la Ferté. Once stripped of financial power, such friends as Monsieur le Duc possessed would fade out of sight. And Little Mademoiselle should come into her own and Brienne be redeemed to decent memory. That would be a sensation to set the tongues wagging!

“So it would and for once rightly,” madame agreed. “But something has gone amiss with your poor plans, Villon; that I can guess, and for that you are here.”

“You are always right, madame. I should not have troubled you had not a miserable meddler from the capital arrived to complicate everything just as success was in sight! For I assure you one more little war with the Dutch or Spain and the Bertin-Tallon Syndicate would cease to exist. But along comes this meddler to set his mischief brewing. My buyers and shippers are suddenly confronted by agents with orders from Colbert. Goods are listed, weighed, tested, traced; of everything must one give account in writing. This I let pass, knowing Colbert’s mania for thrift. But when it comes to poking about my ships, pestering my old sailors about records, wages, insurances, guarantees—devil take it, madame, it is too much.

“Yet there was worse to follow. These impertinent puppies yelping at my heels represent everywhere that sailoring must be made a safe, respectable business. God bless my soul! To the young they say: Only sign the Inscription and all is well for ever. You die, it is nothing. Your wives and babies will be safe with Colbert. You linger on into old age, that, too, is well—Colbert pays you a pension. As though I let my men starve!

“But no matter, the mischief is done; and for the first time in thirty years I begin to have difficulty getting men who understand the true meaning of adventure. And lastly I go to St. Malo to see poor Helena and learn that she, too, has been visited by an inquisitor for no better reason than that this meddler who goes about in smoky black, even to his laces, had discovered she was once employed in the Gremion household. Which renewed our fears of another source, and makes me think this man must be in Monsieur le Duc’s pay and that my daughter were better away from all this for a while. It was Helena reminded me that Monsieur Rainville’s widow was still living, and since her son’s death never quitted the old château.”

Madame nodded. She had not lived through insurrections, religious, and civil strife, without acquiring the ability to extract from the fewest words their utmost significance. She had no difficulty in foreseeing whither these confidences tended. “Quite right, monsieur. I think I follow your way of reasoning. Even if mademoiselle herself should not stand in actual danger, you desire to spare her the humiliation which may result from these persistent investigations of your affairs. And you agreed with Helena that few, and certainly not Monsieur le Duc’s men, would think of looking for Gremion’s daughter at Rainville, where, under my worthy son, Huguenot sympathizers fared rather worse than criminals. . . . How leprous the place must have seemed to you—as it did to me until Aime died and I had the happiness to empty the château to pay his debts and could settle down to dust and dreams. But I ramble. The present alone concerns us. Monsieur, I wonder if you knew that my granddaughter is here? Not because she approves of me, but because the convent had nothing more to offer, and I had hopes of arranging a satisfactory marriage. Which, oddly enough, introduces other complications. In fact, we are about to leave for Paris, where my admirable granddaughter is to be married to Monsieur Freslon and introduced to the fine arts of hypocritical society.”

“So then it is impossible!” Gremion despaired. “And I had planned to tell Lalage a tale to set her romantic little head buzzing. I was going to tell her that amongst the papers Helena had kept so faithfully, I had come across a reference to yourself, madame, as her mother’s friend—if you knew Lalage you would understand how on fire she would be to claim the privilege.”

“Not bad,” madame interposed forcefully. “And while Little Mademoiselle stays here you, I suppose, would stage a nice hanging in the bocage, Monsieur Black Lace to play the chief role?”

“But now you are wrong. I wish to cheat the devil of none but Monsieur le Duc. I shall do as I have done a dozen times before, wait patiently upon opportunity. I shall take myself off to my Mediterranean post until this meddler tires of his energy and the war we know to be in making affords me the occasion I require—a corsair’s liberty to attack all coalition ships. . . . I had even thought of a cruise to the American colonies and New France, of which we hear such varying report. I have often thought that my independent little daughter with her passion for the common people would be happier starting life out there with Henri.”

“Tut, don’t fool yourself, monsieur; no one ever foresaw rightly the way of happiness. And now it is my peculiar privilege to inform you that mademoiselle has already met me, and what is more, that your prospective son-in-law has been arrested for piracy and is to be taken to the Capitol, where Colbert will make an example of him to intimidate adventurous youngsters.” Sensible of his distress, Madame Rainville gave her explanation as briefly as possible, abstaining from any reference to Little Mademoiselle’s experience, and finished by pointing out that, unfortunate as this was, it provided an excellent motive for urging mademoiselle to remove to Paris, where she might hope to intercede for her lover should his case fare too badly.

Captain Gremion appreciated the force of her argument in respect to Henri. “But,” said he, more troubled than he cared to admit, “is not that putting Lalage in way of the danger I dread? Monsieur le Duc may not have guessed I am Villon, and Little Mademoiselle a De Brienne, but, knowing the gentleman of old, it would not surprise me if he attempted to strike Gremion through his daughter.”

Madame answered this by seizing the bell-cord and ringing for food and wine. An empty stomach made a poor counsellor upon a difficult road, said she. Whatever his purpose he would be the better for a little rest and refreshment. “Besides,” she smiled at him cheerfully, “you should know that we women have our own little tricks. Now I, for instance, though a remarkably healthy old woman, keep on hand several accommodating illnesses to provide me with solitude and seclusion. You can understand, monsieur, that a sick old woman and a girl grieving for her lover will not be expected to race about in society. If I may be permitted frankness, you may depend on it that Little Mademoiselle will suffer less from Monsieur le Duc than she seems doomed to suffer from her poor father’s obsession.”

Gremion was as shocked as though she had struck him. “Why, madame—this from you? But shiver my stunsails, madame, would you have me quit now? After ruining a dozen ships and paying out a fortune to rascals who live by blood and plunder, would you have me quit cold with no reason for either cowardice or villainy? No, madame, my daughter may live to think me a brute, but at least she shall know I had just cause and a purpose for all I did.”

“Tut! If women ever had had the sense to prefer absolute justice to crooked affection where would you poor brutes have been? But that aside—do you just keep from too great mischief, Captain Gremion, and I promise to guard your daughter as closely as did any dragon.”

When Angeline arrived somewhat later, she found her grandmother humming to herself and preparing for bed. “You look happy,” she said, tossing down gloves and riding-cloak. “Had a good rest?”

“Admirable, admirable; long and peaceful enough to carry me back half a century. But you look newsy—has Monsieur Freslon proposed diamonds or a gold coach?”

Angeline seated herself by the bed. “Jump in, Grandmother, and I’ll tell you all about it. What a story! That affair at the ball induced Monsieur Freslon to make a confession. Grandmother, Monsieur de St. Valier grossly offended the King and to save his neck came here to discover who is responsible for the smuggling going on along the Biscay coast. All very splendid, and monsieur, true to knightly precedent, at once picks himself a fair lady to give the crusade zest.” Angeline’s flashing smile was like a bright blade. “But what a joke! Hot on the trail of the villain, monsieur flings out his net and captures his lady fair’s lover. Nor is that all, if you please. Mademoiselle is not only a pirate’s sweetheart, but a pirate’s daughter! The daughter of the very man Monsieur le Marquis has gone to such lengths to discover and has found guilty of all sorts of misdemeanours. Now what do you say to that?”

Madame adjusted her lace bed-cap. “Nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing. But from your heat I judge you dislike Mademoiselle Gremion, which is a pity, for I have asked her to accompany me to Paris. A grandmother would be tiresome on a honeymoon, Angeline.”

“This is one of your jokes, Grandmother. You could not mean it. Why, the girl is not only common, but the daughter of a smuggler—a thief.”

“Tut, tut! Why be obnoxious, Angeline? Thief is such a nasty little word. Moreover, all adventure might be put into bad light by dull-wits, Granddaughter. Nor should I venture to call beauty common. Besides, I have formed a liking for mademoiselle. She amuses me and so she goes to Paris.”

Angeline never wasted energy fighting the inevitable. “Oh, very well,” she shrugged, “I suppose you must have someone, and a companion need not have distinguished ancestry.” Again her sword-bright smile flashed jubilant. “But imagine the shock to monsieur, Grandmother. How will his precious pride ever recover?”

“Perhaps I fail to grasp the situation, Angeline. You seem to think Monsieur de St. Valier will be sorely affected because Fate has spared him the supreme folly of concluding an undesirable affair. Tut! Were I vindictive, I should take quite another tack. I should have wished him tied to his misfortune . . . but of course I am not vindictive. Moreover, I shall ask you, Angeline, to consider your own dignity and treat mademoiselle as my guest when she arrives.”

“But why pick her particularly, Grandmother? Why not some girl we know?”

“Oh, run off with you, I am sleepy. I may have a reason and I may not. Which seems to me a perfectly reasonable answer to a very unreasonable question. Good night, Granddaughter.”

Monsieur de St. Valier was gratified to find his hostel in total darkness. In fact, all Rochefort except the quarter given over to merry-making was in darkness. He had no difficulty in reaching his rooms unobserved, nor, in leaving, encountered anyone to challenge his changed appearance. He now hurried to a back street where lived an old veterinary in whose care he kept his black stallion. Here no questions arose which silver might not satisfy. The veterinary kept other horses for hire and for sale—and no questions asked. Monsieur required a good lead horse with saddlebags. Monsieur was instantly accommodated. But was there not something else required, food, or perhaps an extra cloak? The weather looked so threatening—and did monsieur want the little brothers to meet him as usual? Ah, they should be called at once, and of course black was understood. Excellent householder, this veterinary! Monsieur le Marquis expressed his good opinion handsomely, and rode off into the thickening night quite satisfied.

He had not far to go. In a clump of trees that gave down upon the river he tethered his horses and with deftness born of experience, replaced the white lace at his neck and sleeves by ruffles of black. As always, he felt a thrill of pleasure in the ridiculous business by reason of the golden mockery responsible for the act—no night so dark but Little Mademoiselle’s eyes seemed to smile at him star-bright. This done, and his wide-brimmed hat well down over his face, and a long black cape wrapped about him, he stepped along from shadow to shadow as soundless and indefinite as they. Fate conspired with him. The weather, so bright early in the evening, was swiftly assuming a threatening aspect. Clouds, black along the horizon, were sweeping upward rapidly in dark furry ranks. He had only to wait the blotting out of the moon to make safe his crossing the open space lying before the guardhouse. This accomplished he felt reasonably sure of success. The rear of the building was in process of construction, with, strewn all about, piles of lumber, stone, and waste to form an excellent barricade. To gain the second story through the unfinished portion was simple; the descent by way of half-finished stairs at the far angle, more dangerous. Here, almost opposite, was Henri’s cell with, as was to be expected, a nodding guard on duty.

But De St. Valier had not served under Condé for nothing. Gentlemanly ethics, that sagacious leader had impressed upon his followers in his adventurous days, were well enough in their place. But only a fool would expect to win over a brigand, a pitched battle, or a woman by strictly ethical procedure. The Marquis grinned at the huddled bulk of the unsuspecting soldier, and swinging to a beam in line with his head, dropped like a cat. The guard, shaken from his doze to behold a black bat-like creature pouncing down upon him from the air, never would believe that human hands had gagged and tied and flung him into an empty lime barrel. None but the devil could have overcome him so swiftly!

Monsieur de St. Valier helped himself to the guard’s pistols and key-ring and calmly proceeded to enter Henri’s cell. He found him asleep. A big guileless boy he seemed lying there in the pale light of a guttering candle. The Marquis blotted out the light and shook the sleeper.

“No noise, monsieur, if you desire freedom.”

Henri blinked, weariness and sleep clouding his senses, even to blunting the edge of astonishment. Full consciousness only returned when his fetters fell away making a small jubilant noise on the cold stones. Starting to his feet, swaying a little and fumbling for the support of the dark wall, he cried hoarsely: “Good God! It cannot be—I dream, or am I gone mad?”

Monsieur le Marquis’ precise voice cleared the mist from Henri’s fagged senses with the clean-cutting swiftness of a sharp sword. “Quick! Take these pistols, monsieur, and follow me,” he commanded curtly. “Once out of here we are safe for every uniform in town is airing itself at the ball, but there is much to be done and little time in which to do it—this way, and step lightly, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

A ray of pale light fell through the barred window, bringing into momentary relief a haughty aquiline profile. Henri’s astonishment bordered on physical shock. He must be mad! Or was this a new form of refined torture—what should Monsieur le Marquis be doing in his cell? . . . but the pistols he was adjusting with nerveless fingers were real enough. The Marquis reacted to Henri’s obvious astonishment and doubt in characteristic fashion.

“Villain or not, you have no alternative but to trust me,” he told him. “Once outside these walls I shall feel better myself, and even you, Captain Delouche, may think less well of your scruples!”

Monsieur locked the cell behind them and flung the key into the courtyard. Not a sound came from the barrel in the corner. A little more friendly assistance from the fickle clouds and the immediate danger would be passed. Whatever his thoughts, Henri kept them to himself. Not until they had reached the shelter of the woods was a word spoken. But then, as if to forestall any expression of unwelcome gratitude, De St. Valier said, a little hurriedly: “France will no longer be healthy for you, Captain Delouche. It is certain, at least, that ports and highways will be scoured for you. Tell me, are you familiar with our bocage?”

“Yes, monsieur, as familiar as the peasants themselves. But I can’t understand why you should do this which puts you in grave danger.”

“No more do I.” The Marquis seconded dryly and, with a shade of mockery went on: “A negligible point, Monsieur le Capitaine—let us say I am given to caprice. And now have the kindness to listen—you will take this horse, Monsieur le Capitaine, and, keeping to the thickets, proceed directly to La Vendée. Once in the bocage losing yourself will be easier than the reverse—and I suggest that you stay lost in the neighbourhood of Château St. Valier until further word reaches you.”

“Monsieur le Marquis, that would put suspicion upon the château. I could not suffer you to risk more on my behalf.”

Monsieur de St. Valier sprang to horse. “Who said it was on your behalf?” he retorted, and before Henri could grasp the likeliest meaning pursued: “Captain Delouche, I have heard marvellous tales of our French possessions in America, of fabulous fortunes in furs, and your daring suggested the proper adventurer, exactly the man to engage in the fur trade; someone satisfied to stay in the wilderness long enough to accomplish something definite. Think it over, Captain Delouche.”

Henri was at once relieved and the more mystified. “But, Monsieur Gremion—” he faltered, “my friends——”

“Quite so,” the Marquis cut him off. “Your friends, Captain Delouche, may in that case come to rejoice in an occasional fine pelt, to say nothing of the health of your neck. Go carefully at the ford and keep clear of La Rochelle. . . . Perhaps I should remind you my men are fairly vigilant, Monsieur le Capitaine; to spare your friends further distress, I advise you to accept the bocage!”

Leaving Henri, the Marquis followed an erratic trail that wound to the border of Freslon’s hunting preserves. There, at the forks of the road and trail and river three shadowy shapes disentangled themselves from the trees; three tall men in black wearing wide hats and long capes and, like monsieur, indulging the vanity of black laces. “You are prompt, gentlemen,” the Marquis hailed them, and all four disappeared into the forest. They had no need to travel far.

The trees here were so dense and full-leaved no human eye was likely to penetrate to their retreat from the road. Drawing rein, Monsieur de St. Valier inquired bluntly: “Has the courier returned from St. Malo? What—not till last night! But you have his report?”

“Gremion was difficult to follow, monsieur. His suspicions are aroused, and he has friends everywhere. He buys as many blackguards to serve him as did Richelieu. No doubt at all of his being head of a powerful league of adventurers. He did not return by water, and our man lost him in the bocage in the vicinity of Rainville.”

“So much the better,” said the Marquis. “There is more important work to be done. In fact, gentlemen, other irons than his are in the fire, and there are certain papers we must have without delay. I regret we must intercept the stage-coach to obtain them.”

“And it will pass in less than an hour,” said the youngest of the trio, who had accepted the role of spokesman for his comrades. “We search the baggage, I suppose?”

“I hardly think that will be necessary. Among the passengers will be a young officer wounded in the arm; his pockets should yield the prize. Gentlemen, it must be quickly done.”

The dawn had brought a light, intermittent rain, which now increased to a steady, slanting downpour. Luck was holding for Delouche. The Marquis grinned at the thoughts of a man-hunt in the bocage in such weather as this portended. Let it rain, let it pour, so much the better for all! The same amusing thought struck the four of them. Heaven must enjoy their joke, for the spectacle of decent French gentlemen, sworn to the service of justice, about to waylay the Paris stage-coach, was something to fetch laughter.

Eventually the ungainly vehicle hove in sight, its groaning and rattling heard afar off, the sound of hoofs plashing through sucking mud, augmented by the noise of whip and cursing driver, made such a frantic din it seemed a pity to put the poor wretches confined within to further terror. The wretched driver, striving and straining to keep the almost foundering horses pulling evenly and the clumsy wheels in the least disastrous ruts, scarcely saw and cared less when, from the dripping forest, four horsemen sprang out at them; four black devils as much alike as peas, their faces masked, their movements timed like music and the horses they rode a symphony of grace and colour. Well, what did he care; there were two snuffing nobles in the coach, a fat duchess and an officer covered in braid—let them fight the brigands. He had nothing to lose.

The Duchess screamed, which was a pity, for Monsieur Courcel must of necessity support her with his one good arm. The two snuffing gentlemen had not time to draw, for the youngster in black put a pistol to each silken waistband; a most convincing argument and pacifier.

“But this is an infamy,” cried the Comte, glaring at an audacious rascal who, with expert gentleness, relieved him of the fainting lady, and, before he could gather his defence, of his dispatches also. Ravings were as futile as struggle; pinned from behind by a pair of strong arms, he must suffer the agonizing indignity of seeing his precious documents pocketed by a brigand who politely declined his purse instead.

And, here was mystery none but Monsieur Courcel could hope to fathom, the moment the brigands had their papers, back they sprang, displaying a formidable array of persuasive weapons but the most agreeable smiles!

“The saints preserve us!” shrilled the Duchess, when the jolting stage-coach had safely passed the forks and turned a bend, “what is our country coming to? Brigands! La! they were no brigands; his hands—that one who took the papers—think you such hands come honourably to brigands? Well, I know better! A woman is not deceived in such matters. Monsieur le Comte, I sincerely trust those were not State papers?”

Monsieur le Comte spent the remainder of the journey trying to convince madame that such was not the case.

Lalage Gremion counted the dragging hours with beating heart. The slightest noise made her start and rush to the darkened window. Maria, nodding by the fireplace, roused herself from time to time to express her ineffectual counsels. It was useless to worry, useless to burn up energy to no purpose. Mademoiselle should sleep and the morning would bring its own strength.

The morning brought nothing better than dull dreary weather. Lalage grew petulant. Uncertainty and inaction were harder to endure than actual difficulties. Maria ceased to argue and occupied herself about the house. Yet it was she who discovered the sodden figure plodding homeward. “Mademoiselle, they have come!” she cried, peering into the drizzly twilight. Lalage flew to her side, small face aglow with hope soon shattered. “Three! Three! Only three—they did not find him, Maria!”

Jean told a queer tale. They had waited for Henri’s escort on the Rochefort road, just where it skirted Gremion’s estate and several paths branched into the wood. In their zeal—he forebore to say in the miller’s zeal—they had mistaken the outriders of a gentlewoman’s carriage for the soldiers. Lalage heard him patiently, her heart ached for the old man who, she knew, condemned himself bitterly and was so humbled at his failure that he took it as a sign of outworn usefulness. None the less, after an hour’s rest he began to formulate other plans, to which mademoiselle listened attentively, plagued as she was by a sense of futility and doom. With a patience which brought tears to the old man’s eyes, Lalage kept guard upon her sharp little tongue, administered to his wants, and not until she staggered upon her feet could Maria drive her to bed, where the sleep of exhaustion brought welcome release.

It was night when she wakened. The rain had stopped and an eerie quiet prevailed everywhere, yet she was at once quite certain that some sound both definite and familiar had wakened her. But yes, now she knew! Someone had just opened the upper gate, it always growled upon its hinges, and that someone was now tampering with the house door! She flew to Maria who, badly startled, thought her mad from grief. “But someone is at the door,” Lalage insisted, breathlessly. “Someone who knows how the locks of the little gate operate—listen!”

“May the good God be praised!” cried Maria, collecting her sleep-fuddled senses and shaking out her rumpled garments. “Now, you listen, little one. He has a key. The blessed saints be praised, it must be Monsieur Delouche.”

But it was not Henri Delouche. It was Captain Gremion, and hard pressed to show a merry face. Lalage flung herself into his arms, laughing and crying, beside herself with exquisite relief. “There, there, little one, let us be calm.” He kissed the tear-wet face and tousled, shining head, such fear as she could not have guessed tearing at his heart. And then, of course, she must proceed to tell him in her vital fashion of all that had transpired, and he already knew. “Oh, Papa, we must find means to save him! There are my jewels, my horses—oh, everything of which I have so much. Let us offer that. Surely whatever Henri may have taken cannot amount to more than that!”

“We must find the remedy. It is Monsieur Colbert we have most to fear; a righteous person with no heart!”

“Papa! I have only just thought of it—I shall go myself to this Colbert, and I will make him understand the wickedness of destroying Henri! But yes, I will go at once. And if Monsieur Colbert refuses me I shall appeal to the King; His Most Gracious Majesty must have a kind heart.”

Captain Gremion accepted this unsolicited announcement as a sign of divining grace. All the way from Rainville he had fretted over what he must say to persuade Lalage to accept Madame Rainville’s invitation to Paris, and now she herself paved the way. “Bless me, you read my hope and secret prayer, sweetheart. Never doubt it, fortune favours us. What do you think, little one, here we have been living near a lady I thought long since dead, the widow of an officer I served under in my youth—Madame Rainville—who has paid me the compliment of inviting you to Paris.”

“But I fail to understand? Where did you see Madame Rainville, and why should she ask me to go with her to Paris?”

Which required considerable explanation, but was finally accomplished so effectively that mademoiselle rushed away to pack her boxes.

About that same hour, at Rochefort Prison, Monsieur le Marquis was exhibiting remarkable patience as he listened to the guard repeating for the tenth time how he had been overcome by a frightful monster who flew like a bat, had the face of a demon, and used force no human power could withstand. In his opinion the prisoner would never be found, for it was clear the devil had him already. To which Monsieur responded, sensibly: “The devil may indeed covet him, but we must have him. Monsieur Freslon, send out every man in your employ; command a watch at every fishing port from here to Brest with orders to arrest any stranger seeking passage out of the country. I shall myself inform the Admiralty Board at La Rochelle of what has taken place.”

Which he did at length, and so convincingly that the gentleman stood in no doubt as to Monsieur de St. Valier’s unflinching attitude toward the unfortunate Henri Delouche. A pity, since not one of them but had hoped to ease the machinery of Justice to a nice tune of Gremion’s louis, as had been done on not a few previous occasions when his corsairs had overstepped themselves a trifle. But then, what else could one expect when noblemen began meddling with affairs for which the good God had made common people!

Captain Gremion sat before the fire in his pleasant, softly-lighted living-room, but there was no joy about the place; no radiance, no comfort. Little Mademoiselle was gone some hours, the music of her voice and the rhythm of her feet upon the stairs were not to be heard again. Maria, sewing soberly near the window, had received the master’s instructions; Jean, suffering rheumatic pains, had gone to bed; Hector wept in the hay-loft.

Monsieur Gremion waited confirmation of Henri’s removal to Paris. Once he knew what course had been decided upon he would set his own machinery in motion. He was thankful that even if his French property were to be confiscated, as might be expected if an arbitrary court should fix a single charge—although much less incriminating than several which could be brought against him—he had lucrative investments elsewhere and ships on the sea registered in foreign ports. There were, moreover, many irregular channels through which to work, if not rescue, then revenge. These bitter musings were interrupted by a violent ringing of the bell at the gate. Maria glanced up uneasily. Gremion flicked away an imaginary insect. “Let them ring!” said he crossly. “We are not obliged to be home to humour every beggar who staggers in the road. Let them peal away, Maria!” Yet when the clamour died down neither was satisfied. Maria let her mending lie untouched upon her knees and her master, crossing hastily to his bedroom, returned with primed pistols. There had been too many inquisitive travellers passing lately. The next fellow who poked his nose through the grille should come away with something to sniff about. “Monsieur, will you listen to that!” cried Maria, starting up in agitation. Nor was there any mistaking this new sound. The insistent caller must have scaled the wall and now was boldly knocking at the house door. Maria crossed to the window and peered cautiously from between the curtains. “Monsieur le Capitaine, there is only one figure to be seen. . . . Ah! As I live, monsieur, it is the wicked wretch who fetched us to the Rocheforte ball. The good God be praised he comes alone!”

Gremion grinned. “In that case let us admit him, Maria. I have a mind to see this pretty gentleman for myself. Ho! the two of us should be match for a gilded son of Lucifer. Let him in, my good woman, and be quick about it.”

Yes, it was Monsieur de St. Valier, but no longer suave and smiling. At sight of his cold, grim face, Maria crossed herself hastily. Mother of God! had he not made trouble enough—brought grief enough to this house! Captain Gremion recognized him instantly and with like disfavour. The fellow paraded a sword, wore black lace, had an arrogant, graceful manner right enough, and the skill of his fancy blade!

The Marquis did not wait upon welcome. “Captain Gremion, strange as it must appear, I come upon a friendly errand and I must ask a word in private. It is in wretched taste, but perhaps I should add you may trust me in this, Monsieur le Capitaine.”

“Well, considering our last interview, monsieur, I shall not hesitate to admit some slight misgivings,” Gremion retorted dryly, his practised eye measuring the man before him. “To be quite frank,” he resumed less curtly, “I likewise admit your sword has more persuasion than your words. Devil take your impertinence! Shiver and sink me! I’m ready to bet your play is equal to the famed Monsieur de St. Valier’s—but yes, I knew some tricks in my time!”

Monsieur le Marquis’ fatigue lifted a little, his eyes, for an instant, lighting with amusement. “You flatter me more than you surmise, Monsieur le Capitaine,” he replied, throwing off his damp cloak and accepting the seat offered none too graciously by his wary host, “and it lends me courage to stress my sincerity of purpose. Certainly I appreciate how singular it must appear after doing my utmost to kill you upon one occasion; I now should beseech you to believe I had risked an excellent horse upon these abominable roads merely to warn you of danger. Yet strange or no, that precisely states the case.”

Gremion whisked out his coloured handkerchief. “Strange! God bless my soul! I’d call it by a sharper word. And who, may I ask, stirred up this danger, Monsieur Black Lace? Who set men on my track? Spies in my warehouses? Spies on my ships—more despicable still, who invaded the privacy of my home——”

“Precisely! But let us not waste time in recriminations. Whatever my reasons in the past, Monsieur le Capitaine, my objective has changed. But, unfortunately, a game once begun is a game to be finished. Captain Gremion, how soon will the Swallow be ready for service?”

“Why should I answer that?” growled the Captain, flicking at the air with his handkerchief, “and if I answer, why should you believe me?”

“Because, Monsieur Gremion, I propose to buy the Swallow.”

“You propose to what? To buy the Swallow . . . to buy her! Well, sink my anchor, monsieur; you have me boarded!”

The Marquis considered the Captain with extreme distaste. A worthy fellow, doubtless, as his kind went—bold, daring, and shrewd. But where in that awkward bulk and blustering mentality was the magic responsible for Little Mademoiselle? Talk of tricksters! Who could rival Nature in the long game of chance? Anxious to be done with a disagreeable task, the Marquis resumed hurriedly: “It is quickly explained. Monsieur Gremion. I happen to require a good ship and captain to engage in the much-talked-of fur trade—someone experienced upon the seas who can manage men and commercial enterprise. Someone with courage, Monsieur le Capitaine, and not too much respect for certain marine laws—in other words, a man who would take kindly to a considerable stay out of French waters.”

Watching his strange visitor, in whom he marked much to his liking, audacity coupled with clear intellect and unmistakable breeding, he was reminded of what Maria had told him, and a dozen suspicions sprang to mind. So! This fine fellow who went about incognito, winning the confidence of innocent girls, was offering him liberty at a nice distance, and doubtless for a price. A fine pass when the nobility sank to such petty blackmail! By way of baiting the gentleman, Gremion said: “A ship is an expensive toy, monsieur.”

“So is a man’s life, Monsieur le Capitaine,” the Marquis hit back swiftly.

“Just what am I to understand by that?” faltered Gremion, startled.

“This, monsieur. For the Swallow and your promise to sail her to America, I offer you a life—the life of Henri Delouche.”

“In God’s name, monsieur, is this a jest?”

“I was never more serious, Monsieur le Capitaine. And never, you may believe me, was less time available for a vital undertaking. Monsieur Delouche has escaped, the details may be dismissed as unimportant. He will remain in a place known only to me and a trusted confederate until the furore dies down. He has been led to believe that a ship will touch shore near St. Gilles at an appointed time, and he has agreed to emigrate to the colonies. You can appreciate, Monsieur le Capitaine, that this escape of a prisoner, important to Colbert in his drive against piracy, will hasten the investigations into your more personal affairs.”

The Captain interrupted, and into his bearing had crept something missed heretofore, a quiet dignity inseparable from essentially fine natures. “Monsieur, I begin to see how poor are my judgments. My perceptions are doubtless as faulty, but it is patent you do this for other reasons than you state. Your pardon, monsieur, but I have lived too long not to realize that if buying a ship and hiring a captain were the sole motive for this singular proposal, it could be accomplished with less danger to yourself.”

The Marquis did not at once reply. He seemed to have aged, arrogance notwithstanding; his bearing was eloquent of soul-sick weariness and vast regret. Finally, speaking dispassionately, in clipped precise sentences, he proceeded to convince Gremion that, out of favour at Court, and with nothing better in view than exile on a country estate, he was sincere in his curiosity concerning the colonies. Then, as an afterthought, he amended with reluctance: “Captain Gremion, perhaps I should confess that I had the misfortune to be instrumental in bringing humiliation and suffering to an innocent girl whose goodwill I prize. . . . Naturally, it becomes my duty to redress the mischief so far as may be done.”

Quixotic madness was not so incomprehensible to Gremion as the Marquis may have thought. He proved both his understanding and delicacy by letting the reference to mademoiselle pass. After an interval of strained silence he merely asked quietly: “Monsieur, shall we draw up a bill of sale for the Swallow?” And a moment later, quill and paper before him: “To whom shall it be made?”

“To the Marquis de St. Valier,” said the gentleman in black, with just a hint of mirth in his austere countenance.

Monsieur Freslon had provided a house for Madame Rainville near the village of Vaugirard, a pleasant place in the open country destined later to be incorporated in the city Louis the Magnificent heartily despised. The journey had been tedious; late autumn rains, with chilly biting winds, greatly adding to the torture incident to bad roads, indifferent and sometimes dirty hostels, and the extremely uncomfortable coaches. However, madame sustained all this with amazing fortitude, but came down with a touch of inflammatory fever as soon as it was over. Lalage, provided now for the first time with a proper recipient for devotion, hung about the old lady with the tender anxiety of a young mother with her first-born. And madame, who despised fussing, encouraged these efforts, grateful that her aches and pains could divert Little Mademoiselle’s attention from her own troubles. Nothing was to be heard of Henri’s case so far, which they consoled themselves was to be attributed to the ponderousness of legal machinery, and madame very wisely counselled against forcing the issue for fear of setting Colbert against them.

The Freslons, returning from a trip to Rome, where their marriage had been solemnized by a splendid prelate, once a poverty-stricken fellow-student of the still poorer Freslon, took up residence at St. Germain. Such an arrangement was pleasing to Angeline, who was resolved to make the most of the good fortune she secretly thought herself to have purchased at sacrifice. To Gustave Freslon it was altogether acceptable, for it brought him the opportunity he coveted and put him into close communion with Colbert, whom he served. Angeline was immediately received by the frivolous ladies about the Court. Her agreeable spirits, good looks, and the excellent entertainment she provided in her apartments, were at once commended. But it was the chance remark of a gentleman that Monsieur Freslon’s lady had as sharp a tongue and ready wit as La Montespan herself, which was directly responsible for the curiosity she kindled and the popularity she so quickly accomplished.

It was all very flattering and went to even her cool head. The rumours of this brilliant paragon finally reached Madame de Montespan herself, incommoded just then by the tiresome business of a third confinement. The miserable event over, and the future Comte de Vexin safely into the world, his extremely bored mother decided to amuse herself with this new novelty out of the provinces and forthwith commanded the lady’s presence.

Angeline Freslon was not the least fluttered, and by no means flattered. Which singularity the arrogant Montespan was quick to perceive, and instead of claws exhibited smiles. Indeed, these two recognized a kinship and at once struck up what friendship such selfish natures might permit. Montespan could be both charming and generous.

“Ah, madame,” she now was moved to say, “they told me you were pretty; they erred—you are dangerous. Monsieur Freslon is to be congratulated to say nothing of St. Germain.”

Angeline disported her fascinating smile and her voice was caressing: “The most beautiful woman in France can afford to be charitable. Madame, are you fond of music? If so, I might afford you some amusement, or shall we speak of the ladies in Rome?”

“Oh, the ladies by all means,” said Montespan, and found herself quickly rewarded; her boredom drowned in laughter at Angeline’s recitation. Her nurses objected and were promptly dismissed.

An admirable beginning. Angeline went home satisfied with herself, as well she might, for the powerful favourite had condescended to invite her to the first soirée she planned on her rising from childbed. Which the remarkable lady accomplished within the fortnight. Seeing her glittering in jewels, and her sapphire eyes scarcely less sparkling, her step light and airy, none but the uninitiated had surmised that the little interval of forced retirement had been other than a salutary, pleasant rest.

Here, at this intimate gathering given by madame in her private garden, Angeline Freslon met the Comte Courcel and recognized him instantly for the young officer whose sudden appearance had created such disturbance at Rochefort. With him was the Duke, his father. The unexpected encounter was provocative to a degree. It brought back many better forgotten memories and upraised a host of peevish regrets. Angeline, listening attentively to the Comte’s amusing anecdotes, found herself thinking of Monsieur de St. Valier and his inexplicable fascination and that charming intimacy which had been ripening between them, only to be shattered by a silly little vixen with golden hair and naïve prattle. To think that a man of the world must always succumb to such obvious antics! Well, by now he might have come to his senses. Which flattering conjecture invoked the pleasantly co-relative thought that, as La Montespan magnificently demonstrated, marriage need not necessarily put an end to romance. Angeline complimented the Comte upon his geniality and narrative powers, adding, as bait to Monsieur de La Ferté: “Monsieur, you observe how avidly I hang upon your son’s words, but I assure you it is nothing compared to the astonishment he provoked at Rochefort. Which reminds me, Monsieur le Comte, what has become of our pirate?”

Monsieur Courcel glanced uneasily at his father, who, despite a placid exterior and agreeably moulded smile, exuded displeasure. Monsieur le Duc, interpreting the glance, took command of the situation. It suited the new role he had adopted since the cooling process of the years had made warmer pursuits difficult. Here was a pretty woman to be impressed, mildly misled, and possibly won to his party. With admirable detachment and toleration, Monsieur le Duc began a strange tale comprising such incredible episodes that Angeline found herself, at the end, rather hazier than before; the one clear detail, Henri’s escape, and Monsieur Courcel’s humiliating experience in the stage-coach, the most obscure of all.

“But, monsieur,” she hazarded apologetically, “surely I misapprehend, for all this seems to cast a reflection upon the Marquis de St. Valier who, you admit, solved the riddle of your losses in the first place. Why, having fixed the guilt and prepared those incriminating documents, should the Marquis adopt such self-destructive measures as your words imply?”

“Ah, why indeed,” sighed the Duke maliciously; “it is not to be expected you would guess to what lengths passion for power and fortune lead a man—not to hint the possibility of revenge.”

“Impossible, monsieur,” Angeline was emphatic, almost angry. “The Marquis de St. Valier has ample fortune, an enviable record for bravery, and as for revenge, upon whom, monsieur? If what you maintain be true, who but the Marquis himself would suffer? Moreover, has not my husband men everywhere pursuing leads furnished by Monsieur de St. Valier? Is it likely he would be so mad as to hope to evade all those men and efface in a single gesture the work of many months?”

Which commendable reasoning was rewarded by a final shock. With suave patience Monsieur le Duc went on to explain how this very morning a certain Monsieur Bertin, recently recovered of severe wounds sustained in his service, had reached Paris, bringing more damaging news. This news required for its better emphasis a little digression; Monsieur le Duc found it necessary to remind Madame Freslon that her husband, not being at the helm in Rochefort as formerly, operations there were not the smoothest. Recognizing this, Colbert had dispatched orders to Monsieur de St. Valier with authority for the immediate arrest of Gremion and the confiscation of the Swallow, known to be an infamous smuggling craft.

Monsieur de La Ferté desired Angeline to try to imagine the courier’s consternation when Monsieur le Marquis was not to be found at Rochefort, nor at the lodge, nor in La Rochelle or even at his château. The Duke regained something of former animation as he concluded: “Why think you he was not to be found, madame? Well, for this astonishing reason—he had left on the Swallow for Marseilles. But that is not all; the courier, handing out his papers and demanding a ship to stand after the smuggler, was calmly informed that the Swallow is not Gremion property at all, but the possession of Monsieur le Marquis! The crew she shipped was picked from tavern habitats who thought it slavery to be tabulated on the Inscription. She was not commanded by Gremion, and the port officials stake their authority he was not on board. But for all that Gremion has vanished as mysteriously as Delouche. His men refuse to talk, refuse even to take it seriously. And so, madame, you may conceive Colbert’s dilemma and His Majesty’s displeasure.”

Angeline was not greatly affected by Colbert’s dilemma. Now that her husband was safe in office the Finance Minister had ceased to interest her. Politely, but unimpressed, she listened to Monsieur le Duc’s fantastic imaginings a little bored, until the gentleman amended: “But I see you think this merely a curious coincidence. What shall we say, then, when Bertin informs me that when Monsieur le Marquis rescued him from Gremion’s tavern and put into his hands the papers for my son, his disguise was precisely that of the brigand who later held up the stage and pocketed these same papers and nothing else!”

Angeline rewarded the Duke with her dazzling smile, a bequest he appraised quite correctly. Her voice was not unlike thin showers of cold water. “Monsieur Bertin should take up play-writing, monsieur. What a delicious turn of mind to possess! Alas, if it were true, I should accuse Monsieur de St. Valier of contemplating suicide and lacking the adequate courage.”

A thought she toyed with all the way home and had no comfort for her pains. Her husband, nodding with much-needed sleep, answered her queries hazily. Yes, he had been informed of Delouche’s escape; yes, Colbert was furious; at least, as furious as a calculating machine could be. Why? Why, indeed, but that His Majesty never tolerated failure. Colbert, having once persuaded the King, it was his Christian duty to rid the seas of pirates (not to stress the monetary gains incident to such conquest). Louis, by the Grace of God King of France and Navarre, meant to have the business done properly!

“But the Marquis?” Angeline insisted. “Can the Duke be right about him?”

Freslon stirred uneasily. “Nonsense, nonsense, certainly not. But the mischief is, my dear, His Majesty’s dislike of the Marquis lends weight to these suspicions, and both are augmented by La Montespan—what accursed roads we have everywhere!”

“Gustave, Gustave,” she shook him gently. “What has La Montespan against Monsieur de St. Valier?”

Freslon patted her jewelled hands sleepily. “Ah, you have much to discover, my angel. But you would have relished the humour of it, Angeline. Monsieur le Marquis had the rashness to assist madame’s husband in a hoax which made her the butt of malicious tongues for weeks. A foolish sort of daring for which gentlemen so often lose their heads.”

Early next morning Angeline set out for Vaugirard in her splendid coach and four. She found her grandmother much improved, sitting out in the garden conservatory with Lalage reading to her. Little Mademoiselle she thought listless and pale; so altered, she was touched in spite of the secret hatred she entertained. Madame Rainville was cheery. “You look splendid, Angeline. Come, you may kiss me. And is that the latest fashion? What tremendous waste of satin. But you must have sights to narrate and news of interest.”

Angeline found, however, that telling her news was more difficult than she had anticipated. With mademoiselle’s golden eyes fixed upon her, their glances uncomfortably compounded of amusement and distrust, she somehow could not relish the task as she had thought to do. Indeed, it was by much circumlocution she finally ventured:

“And to further vex Monsieur le Comte, hard on heels of losing his papers, came the news that Captain Delouche had escaped.”

Whereupon Little Mademoiselle turned the colour of faint lilies, and in the most poignant tones cried: “Madame, can this be true? But yes, you could not jest so cruelly. It must be true—my Henri is saved. The good God has answered my prayers! Oh, madame, is not this a miracle surpassing our boldest hope?”

She appealed to Madame Rainville, tears trembling in her eyes.

Angeline’s pity changed to mockery, her smile a cheerful, cutting lash. “No doubt you are right, mademoiselle, though I confess it looks to me as if Monsieur le Marquis had done the answering, and were likely to lose his head for it.”

But Lalage, rising phœnix-like from despair, ignored Angeline’s maliciousness. Henri was safe; no illnatured insinuations should dampen her joy nor lessen gratitude for that. Nor would she, even if pride permitted, risk hurting Madame Rainville by defending herself against Angeline Freslon’s unmerited spite. It was madame whose voice and manner radiated unqualified displeasure.

“Angeline, you rather amaze me, prejudice is such an ancient vice. This talk of brigandry, duplicity, and what-not sounds as foolish as a child’s nightmare. But then, exaggerations are always stupid.”

“It happens, however, that I am not exaggerating, Grandmother,” Angeline defended herself tartly, a faint flush staining the habitual pallor of cheek and brow. “And to spare mademoiselle I had meant to avoid other more confusing and disastrous details. For instance, it was found that Monsieur de St. Valier had purchased the Swallow and refitted her for a long voyage. And, furthermore, her departure for the Mediterranean coincides with Captain Gremion’s flight. A coincidence damaging enough even without the suspicious incidents preceding it.”

Lalage forgot her good resolutions; aflame with indignation, she bounced to her feet confronting Angeline squarely: “Oh, you had no thought to withhold these inventions, madame; you travelled hither to say them. And you say them to torment me. Why, God knows. But they are false, every one. See, here in my bosom I have a letter from my father sent some days ago. He has left, yes, and there is nothing singular in that. He is seldom home, nor does he trouble to time his coming and going. He did not leave on the Swallow nor on any other of his ships; he went to the hills which he loves almost as much as the sea, for a rest, after which, as you may read for yourself, he means to make his annual visit to his foreign posts.”

Angeline laughed. “And the Swallow transferred all at once to Monsieur le Marquis, that, too, is fully explained, I suppose?”

Lalage stamped her little foot. “For why, madame, should he make account to me of what he buys or sells? My father has built and sold a dozen ships, good ships—a Spanish grandee purchased one. Why, then, should he not sell the Swallow? If Monsieur le Marquis required a ship, why should he not buy her? And if he did, what bearing has that upon Henri’s escape and Papa’s vacation?”

“Come, come, my dear,” Madame Rainville tapped the ground with her cane, “tempers get us nowhere. Be so kind, mademoiselle, as to fetch my shawl for me and order a cup of chocolate, very sweet, for Angeline.”

Lalage, instantly ashamed of her outburst, was glad to escape. Madame turned to her granddaughter. “Now then, Angeline, suppose you tell me plainly what Eugène is supposed to have done.”

Angeline frowned. “Why must you always be contrary, Grandmother? Why pretend to be blind to the obvious. Monsieur le Marquis has been persuaded that it is more profitable to support the buccaneers than Colbert.”

“Thanks, Angeline. That is sufficient of its kind. But while we are about these pleasantries, suppose we agree that, Monsieur le Marquis’ predilection for a pretty face notwithstanding, it is a bit silly to be so vindictive towards Mademoiselle Gremion.”

“I don’t understand you in the least, Grandmother.”

“Tut, of course you do. You regret, and so do I, that Monsieur de St. Valier upset our sensible plans for his domestic happiness by going off a-chasing willy-woo ideals. A sweet folly he may bitterly regret by now, and for which you assure me he is likely to lose his handsome head. Well, what more do you want? Surely the punishment is sharp enough.”

For a moment Angeline lost the unimpassioned calm characteristic of her. She trembled with the violence of her emotions, and her words came in a feverish rush. “What more do I want? I want her to suffer who made others suffer; only that is sharp enough. My Henri is saved . . . her Henri! God heard her prayers. Well, if it were in my power I should hear and answer otherwise! I should free her Henri by grace of hempen rope and give her leave to pray for him in some cool nunnery for ever after.”

“Tut, tut,” madame spoke crisply, no stress of feeling in her voice. “I could do much better than that, Angeline. I should not hang her Henri nor give her leave to pray. Oh, no, I should wed her to the enemy, that is to say, to Monsieur le Marquis, who, you perceive, she abominates and who on his part would rather die than make a buccaneer’s daughter the Marquise de St. Valier. Now that I should call real punishment and a joke to please even the critical Montespan.”

Accustomed though she was to her grandmother’s sharp raillery, Angeline was startled and a little frightened at the rash thoughts her words inspired. Fantastic though it might seem, her intercourse with La Montespan let her believe such punishment might be accomplished. A lady who resorted to love-philtres, Black Magic, and the Devil’s Mass to further her power and beauty would appreciate the nice tortures of the jest Madame Rainville propounded. She felt a little giddy, foreseeing the delightful end; Monsieur le Marquis humbled and thoroughly grateful for sympathetic understanding. . . . Had he not often commented upon her rare gift of understanding? . . .

Catching her grandmother’s laconic expression, she hastened to reply: “It does sound delightfully wicked and convincingly cruel; at least, until one reflects that not a few gentlemen have thoroughly enjoyed such little affairs.”

“Oh, true,” madame agreed amiably, “but we were stressing marriage, my dear, quite a different matter. Ah, here comes the chocolate. I hope you are spending the evening, Angeline. Little Mademoiselle plays the harp creditably and amuses me by singing out of time.”

“Sorry, Grandmother, I really must be excused.” Angeline was emphatic. “Gustave expects me at four. We are to attend a play the Duc de Lauzun is giving in honour of La Montespan.”

Madame Rainville sought Little Mademoiselle in her bedroom as soon as Angeline was gone. She stopped irresolute outside the door. Any other time Lalage would have flown to meet her; that she did not do so now argued the sad preoccupation madame dreaded. Gently she tapped on the door, and receiving no answer decided to enter, though she abhorred any infringement upon privacy. It was a large, cheerful room she entered, having an alcove with windows overlooking the garden. Mademoiselle’s dressing-table stood in this alcove and here, before the long mirror, was Lalage herself poised in the charming attitude of a deep curtsy. Madame was astonished, and about to say so when she caught sight of the pale little face reflected in the glass. Mademoiselle turned round slowly.

“You are good not to laugh, madame,” she said wearily, “it must have seemed ridiculous, but I am making ready for an interview. I must see Monsieur Colbert at once; only he will understand and do something to prevent a frightful mistake.”

“But I thought everything nicely done and fairly clear. Messieurs Gremion and Delouche safe; and you, my dear, in good hands till they send for you.” Madame was matter-of-fact, exhibiting more interest in the cushions of the couch she chose for seat than mademoiselle’s interview. Lalage drew up a stool and seated child-fashion, hands clasped round her knees, she replied passionately, her words rushing over one another like birds in flight: “But what is clear? That my father, accused of smuggling and piracy, has added to the list cowardice and sold himself to monsieur in order to hide behind his patronage? Madame Freslon, who hates me for interfering in her musty village, may find that clear, but not I. And Henri—even yet I cannot understand about Henri; always heretofore he obeyed my father, madame. As for Monsieur de St. Valier, why should he entangle himself in this fashion—what is clear in that? What does he want with a ship, and why my father’s ship?”

“Does not your heart tell you?” madame queried softly, and had her answer in the quick leap of blood to Mademoiselle’s white cheeks rather than from the cold little words and resentful glance the question provoked.

“I cannot pretend to misunderstand you, madame. But what could my heart tell me except to distrust the man who under our own roof sought information to destroy us?”

“Now you blunder. Monsieur de St. Valier is above that sort of thing. Tut, I know what you are about to say, that spying is a miserable trade in any case. So is war and vengeance and sacrifice, yet human beings thrive on it. As a matter of fact, the Marquis had no choice. Kings, my dear Lalage, are sometimes arbitrary creatures like the rest of us, and their punishments full of caprice; Monsieur de St. Valier was commanded to investigate these affairs.”

Lalage pondered that a while in silence, and was the more torn with conflict. “I thought Monsieur le Marquis in favour at Court. Madame, as a little girl I saw him in the King’s train. . . . I remember it very well.”

Madame Rainville smiled to herself and was tempted to caress the shining head bowed at her knee. “A vain dandy, I warrant, the young Eugène—so you remember him, do you?”

“He was very kind,” Lalage defended him faintly. “He picked up my doll. . . . I could not forget it. No one else seemed quite real, it was all so magnificently solid . . . he left the ranks to pick up Elizabeth.”

Madame saw her opportunity. “He would, romantic idiot! Well, can you not believe he might do the like again, mademoiselle—leave the ranks to which duty assigned him to perform an act of chivalrous nonsense. Might not a man who, in his thoughtless youth, was human enough to rescue a little girl’s doll be capable now of the more serious rescue of father and lover?”

“Oh, stop!” Lalage bobbed up like thistle-blow in a gust of wind. “Dearest madame, I cannot bear it. I have been thinking something like that ever since Madame Freslon said the brigand had worn black lace—but, of course, you cannot know what I mean by that.” Lalage checked her nervous pacing to appeal with desperate seriousness a seemingly irrelevant and foolish question: “Tell me, madame, is it customary for gentlemen to wear black lace? Have you heard it done before—ever?”

“No, I cannot say I have,” Madame Rainville was a little short of patience, “nor can I deem it highly important; any fad must have a beginning.”

“Oh, but it is not a fad,” cried Lalage frantically. “And it is so important that Monsieur de St. Valier’s entire case hangs upon it. You heard Madame Freslon recount that Messieurs Courcel and Bertin agree on the similarity of disguise used by monsieur and the brigands. She thought it absurd in Bertin to stress the fact, but I know he was right. . . . I know it, for I myself suggested black lace to Monsieur le Marquis!”

“Well, here’s news!” Madame Rainville exclaimed dryly, “and troublesome, for now I fail to perceive any way out for Monsieur de St. Valier or any reason for your doubts of him.”

The last vestiges of colour fled from mademoiselle’s little face, her eyes were frightened, and misery cried from their amber depths, but her firm little chin was set in a stubborn line. Her voice sounded faint and unnatural: “What I think matters little, what I believe, even less. Monsieur Colbert must somehow be made to see, to understand; that alone is of consequence now. Oh, surely, you understand. Despite my answer to Madame Freslon, I know this marks an end of peace for my father in France, and Henri has a price upon his head . . . that should suffice Monsieur Colbert.”

Madame leaned hard upon her cane. She had come to understand Lalage rather better in their weeks of friendly intercourse. Impetuous and tender, not easily moulded nor broken. Little Mademoiselle was a true De Brienne, with something of Villon’s fire and stubbornness added. Therefore, changing her tactics, she said, almost harshly: “You surprise me, mademoiselle. Knowing Monsieur de St. Valier to be the author of these evils you turn about, change your tune and refuse to have him suffer.”

Lalage stamped her little feet. “But, yes, would you have me prefer to see him make a show of retribution and be obliged to remember the sacrifice for ever after? Would you have me such a fool? Heavens, madame, what I most want is to forget.”

“Tut, tut! Suppose we settle this thing once and for all. If we are to arrive at a sensible conclusion, we must understand each other thoroughly. Now, my dear, what do you most want to forget?”

“Why—why—Monsieur de St. Valier, of course.”

“Ah, well, now we are clear on that. We have, then, only to wait developments and the acceptable moment for an audience with the Minister. That is to say, if an audience be advisable. To be frank, I cannot see the slightest sense in provoking the lion. I should wait till he roars for the sacrifice.”

“You mean I must continue sitting here doing nothing but fray your patience and wait?”

“Why not? It has worked admirably so far; while you waited Henri escaped, and your father decided upon a sensible vacation; Hector continues to study and Maria and Jean to feed your beggars; entirely satisfactory I call it. Moreover, I am not so sure that Colbert is the power to approach on Monsieur le Marquis’ behalf. I rather think it is a woman.”

“A woman?” Lalage bristled, anxieties and fears lost in fierce up-welling hostility toward this greater unsuspected menace. “What woman, madame?”

Clever old schemer, Madame Rainville fetched a gloomy sigh. “My dear, a dangerous woman—a beautiful woman . . . the exquisite De Montespan.”

Hands pressed to her temples, Little Mademoiselle turned and fled down the corridor and out the door into the garden. Left thus abruptly, Madame Rainville smiled serenely, leaned upon her cane with cheerful patience and chuckled softly. But, yes, it is self-evident. Oh, quite! Little Mademoiselle wants most of all to forget Eugène de St. Valier!

The weeks dragging by so interminably for Lalage Gremion were full of increasing interest for Angeline Freslon. She seldom saw her husband, but on those rare occasions when the encounter was inevitable she chose to be irreproachably amiable, even charming. A wise precaution, for Freslon was no fool; and to stand well with Madame de Montespan, whose chief amusement was gambling, required generous resources.

However, Angeline had set herself to gaming with the same cool-headed precision she displayed in other pursuits. Her losses were therefore not exorbitant. But Monsieur Freslon detested waste; he growled less at a string of pearls charged to his account than at a hundred louis lost at cards.

Boredom notwithstanding, Angeline wisely refrained from disillusioning her husband who, she had discovered somewhat to her amazement, was fast acquiring friends amongst the powerful men about Court, not to mention his increasing favour with Colbert. Colbert felt the need of supporters of like calibre to himself. His Royal master was fast tiring of humdrum prosperity and peace, his passion for building palaces for the moment eclipsed by his passion for his troops, manœuvred so grandiloquently by the ambitious Louvois, Minister of War. What had Colbert to offer half so fascinating as ranks of uniformed men with bayonets, cuirasses, and tossing plumes, to make a dazzling spectacle for romantic fools and foolish women? His budding industries, budding navy, and budding solvency, these had not the glamorous appeal nor the approval of the most powerful lady of the realm whose extravagance they largely supported. The Montespan hated him, he knew. His remonstrances against the expenditures upon the palace of Versailles, Louis’ grandiose gesture before the world and the select Mortemart, had earned him her tireless enmity. Montespan had joined forces with Louvois; her ready tongue on every occasion proclaimed the glories of war and the distinctions to be won therefrom by the nobility, who, truly enough, had by now few other outlets for their restive energies. The people had no voice, their opinion and desire were not considered.

All this Colbert confided to Freslon. Louis was decided upon war, war with the Dutch whom he hated as Protestants, Republicans and prime movers of the Triple Alliance which had balked his last invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. An altogether detestable nation, according to His Majesty, who, despite their frightful heresies, somehow prospered in the carrying trade and the manufacturing industries Colbert prized so much. Since, therefore, fight he must, to further the glory of France and himself in Françoise-Athenais’ critical eyes, the Dutch were certainly the proper victims.

With such noble perspectives in mind, it was hardly reasonable to expect His Majesty’s undivided interest in the miserable problems confronting Colbert’s merchant marine. Without in the least having pardoned his Minister for permitting Monsieur de St. Valier to bungle his commission, Louis was for the moment totally indifferent to pirates and privateers and the excellent moralities his Finance Minister envisioned.

Freslon commiserated with his superior and did his best to solicit secret support for Colbert’s enterprises. In this he was highly successful, tempting many an illustrious gentleman sick of enforced idleness and dwindling finances to invest in the spice trade, the French East India Company, and even won considerable patronage for Colbert’s latest scheme, the establishment and maintenance of a company to handle the fur trade in North America.

Gustave Freslon disliked intensely the idea of indebtedness to anyone. It disturbed him to reflect that except for Monsieur de St. Valier he had not gained favour with the Rainvilles and this swift elevation at Court. Consequently it urged upon him the necessity to bolster De St. Valier’s cause when occasion permitted, and he missed no opportunity to remind Colbert of the Marquis’ unquestioned ability and represented with tireless persistence that the purchase of the Swallow, far from acting against him, was further proof of De St. Valier’s foresight and acumen. He had merely anticipated The Trading Company of The West!

A theory to receive considerable support when, not long thereafter, Monsieur Bertin, always busy about De la Ferté’s affairs, arrived to say he had unearthed this disconcerting commonplace: the Swallow had not proceeded to Marseilles, she had put in at Bordeaux to take on a cargo of cloth, knives, gunpowder and beads. And Monsieur de St. Valier, calmly remaining behind when she stood out to sea again, had admitted without hesitation that her destination was North America. An immediate summons from His Majesty had appeared neither to surprise nor dismay the Marquis. He was quite agreeable to returning at once and raised no objection whatever! Colbert received this unexpected information and tale of unprecedented docility on De St. Valier’s part without comment until Bertin had departed, when he burst out irritably that Monsieur le Marquis was either an extremely foresighted gentleman or a very great fool. But that neither the one nor the other was likely to save him from the Bastille.

“True enough,” Freslon interposed quietly, “but suppose Monsieur de St. Valier should prove that the brigands had adopted his disguise for purposes of revenge, and that his connection with Gremion began and ended with the purchase of the Swallow—what then, Monsieur Colbert? Except for these coincident trifles there is nothing definite against Monsieur le Marquis.”

Colbert turned on him like an angry lion. “He has Le Montespan against him, which is to say, everything!”

A disagreeable fact Monsieur Freslon was to find confirmed by his brilliant wife that same evening. They were alone for once and Angeline inclined to be sociable. She was too tired to go out, but not averse to an hour’s gossip with her husband, upon whose pocket she had specific designs. He, sensible man, discounted the motive, and thought it extremely pleasant to have this sleek creature, reclining upon a cushioned lounge with studied grace, hang upon his words with eager attention. Monsieur Freslon could talk very well indeed when he chose, and he was full of the coming war. He was against it in principle but for it in theory, and lavish in his praise of Louvois’ commissary department, new in the history of national conflict. It appealed to his prudent middle-class instincts much more than the brilliant manœuvres of the best-trained army in Europe. He praised the King who, one must believe, was responsible for the existence of these three hundred thousand trained troops soon to be pitted against the twenty thousand miserable units of the Dutch. His Majesty had other laurels as hardly won. Henrietta of Orleans, to show her appreciation of Louis’ tender regard for an English sister-in-law, had, with creditable speed, secured her brother Charles of England’s neutrality by the Treaty of Dover. After which this grateful and agreeable lady further advanced the destinies of France by dying quickly and opportunely that Louis might console her husband with the lusty Princess Palatine, and thereby secure the stubborn Electore’s friendship and co-operation. Nor had His Majesty failed in lesser projects. All through the Rhenish districts his agents had been assiduous in bribing the petty princes. Sweden was detached from the Dutch alliance. The United Provinces were left friendless. And between them Louis, Louvois, and Turenne had drawn up a plan of campaign which would enable the army to enter Holland without violating the neutrality of the Spanish Netherlands. Everything, indeed, had been done to ensure success, and the time was drawing closer for the grand departure of these grand troops under their grand semi-divine trinity, Louis, Turenne, and Condé.

Angeline made the appropriate comments upon all this; it must, of course, represent genius of the highest order, the genius peculiar to men. But to herself she admitted that no woman could quite grasp the marvel of it. For example, her own reaction was amazingly simple and sensible. What, after all, was the good of killing the Dutch, who made such excellent laces? And besides, how frightfully dull it would be after the glorious army had marched away. But just now there was no dearth of interest, thanks to Montespan, whose spirits assumed additional verve and scintillation with the birth of each bastard.

It was Freslon’s turn now to listen with interest while Angeline narrated her toothsome gossip and to say the appropriate word, timed to his own requirements. The beautiful Marquise, he was told, fairly writhed with impatience for Monsieur de St. Valier’s return. She had in mind a little farce almost worthy the malicious genius of her tiresome husband and his friend. She had consulted with Monsieur de la Ferté, whose age and reputation for bold intrigue made his opinion invaluable. His approval was instantaneous and emphatic, but knowing the King’s native stubbornness and fear of being influenced, she had not yet advised His Majesty of her desire.

“You, I perceive, have the honour of Madame’s confidence,” Freslon smiled, not altogether approving, but tactful ever. Angeline knew it and laughed, well pleased with herself.

“Why not? Madame appreciates my discretion as much as I do yours, monsieur. It is really an admirable and quite harmless little jest. La Montespan proposes to even the score between them and at the same time curé Monsieur de St. Valier of indiscriminate sympathy by marrying him to the pirate’s daughter.”

Freslon was thoroughly shocked, his definitely middle-class propriety outraged. Angeline, not he, was moved to laughter by his vehement remonstrances. It was impossible that Montespan contemplated such an outrage. Why, the De St. Valier had been a power in the land long before Hugh Capet drew out of the wilds to found a race of kings. Their antiquity and proud lineage set them above titles coined since their day. La Montespan was doomed to failure, and the quips of her enemies if she thought to best Monsieur de St. Valier by such crude buffoonery. “And what of madame your grandmother,” he concluded, “it is certain she would resist such persecution of Mademoiselle Gremion, nor can I perceive by what means La Montespan hopes to coerce Little Mademoiselle to participate in this shameful plot.”

“No?” Angeline stretched languidly and flashed her glittering smile. “My dear Gustave, surely you remember her Henri. You were touched by her devotion at Rochefort—so was madame when I told her of it, and ready to ask His Majesty to pardon Delouche if mademoiselle will play her little part. After all, the poor girl has no reason to consider Monsieur de St. Valier, Gustave. The Marquis had no thought for her when he launched his campaign against Gremion and his confederates.”

An argument difficult to refute: reason was on Angeline’s side, backed by malice, which intuition warned him was not Montespan’s alone. Consequently he deemed it neither expedient nor wise to voice the contradictory thoughts that troubled his usually placid mind. Little Mademoiselle’s love of fair play, her generosities, her courage; none of these La Montespan could understand nor take into account. And even more significant and prophetic of disaster all round was the memory of what the Marquis had said the night he first discovered mademoiselle’s identity. Even if he were guilty, Monsieur le Marquis would never purchase safety at such a price. Moreover, impossible though it might seem to a woman of Montespan’s gross egotism, Freslon felt sure Monsieur de St. Valier would be thinking less of his own humiliation than of pity for mademoiselle when he refused. Whatever her power, the Favourite was doomed to certain failure for once.

Angeline, watching his face, guessed more of his thoughts than he would have found agreeable. Said she very sweetly: “My dear Gustave, you are much too tender hearted. Sentiment is so old-fashioned and such woeful waste of energy besides. Come, let me rub the worries from your poor old head.”

Madame Rainville told herself for the hundredth time that mademoiselle was getting beyond her understanding. A nervous little changeling of whom none knew what to expect. She was like a consuming fire, her burning intensity and continual business left one depleted. She was never still. She anticipated madame’s every whim and invented a dozen others. The cook, the gardener, the housemaids, and the coachman, all came in for a share of her burning concern. She knew to the last detail the contents of cellar, pantries, and presses; she knew how much was wasted in the kitchen and what given away. She kept a quaint little budget which no one but herself could ever have deciphered, and, of course, she kept a diary. She was determined to be cheerful, always smiling with the lips, whatever the tale her eyes might tell. And never since madame had represented the wisdom of postponing an audience with Colbert had she mentioned Henri Delouche. And allusion to Monsieur le Marquis was completely ignored, but she sometimes spoke of her father, of his great generosity to the poor, and of the many curious things he had seen upon his travels. But once when spring had put new bloom on everything, and birds were busy nesting in the trees, madame discovered Lalage weeping bitterly out in the garden, and was promptly informed she wept for little Monseigneur, a yellow monkey out of Madagascar.

It was unnatural and dangerous; madame foresaw all sorts of disastrous consequences, and yet nothing so alarming as the advent of Monsieur Courcel who dawned upon the scene one fine day in wake of Angeline. But there he was now walking under the greening trees of her garden gazing down upon Little Mademoiselle with an expression much too rapt for madame’s approval. And Little Mademoiselle, uplifting her piquant face and luminous golden eyes to these hungry glances, displeased her even more. Tut, madame found herself ready to believe that yarn about the angels who saw the daughters of men and found them fair. Certainly no masculine creature, man nor angel, could withstand that combination of tragic sweetness and flattering helplessness. Nor would their conversation have dispelled her doubts. The Count was saying: “But it is not right; for weeks and weeks I have dogged this highway merely to get a glimpse of you. In the bad weather I nearly always missed you, and now you refuse to go beyond the garden. Mademoiselle, it cannot benefit anyone for you to bury yourself alive.”

“I have no taste for cards, monsieur, and other gardens afford no wider joys than this. I hardly think I should care to interrupt more dances.”

Monsieur Courcel was deadly serious and deeply concerned. “Mademoiselle, you still hold that unfortunate affair against me. Yet I assure you no victory was ever more regretted or had a more ludicrous end.”

Lalage flung him a quick, penetrating glance. He was really very decent, this captor of Henri’s. Smiling a little, she answered: “I hold nothing against you, monsieur. I quite believe you acted upon orders and honourably discharged your duty. But you would not, in my place, invite further slights nor forget the stigma under which you wait judgment. It would do you small credit in men’s eyes, Monsieur le Comte, to be seen in my company.”

And then it was madame caught his cry: “Mademoiselle, I care nothing for that. I only care that for me none seems so beautiful . . . that I ask only to be allowed to prove my sincerity.”

Tap! tap! tap! sharp as hail madame’s fingers drummed upon the window-pane. “Come here,” she called cheerfully, “I have lost something. Mademoiselle, where on earth is the book I was reading?” Monsieur Courcel was moved to wish all dowagers dead and all books in the flames. Lalage was secretly amused at his evident displeasure and, perhaps, a little curious. At the door she suddenly turned to him with engaging naïveté: “Monsieur, would you really do me a kindness—would you really?”

“Oh, mademoiselle, try me!”

“Then tell me the truth about the missing documents—those documents so damaging to my father’s good name and business. . . . You do not really believe Monsieur de St. Valier had any part in intercepting them?”

That she should unbend this much, treat him no more as an enemy, sent him into transports of joyous hope. He forgot the spectre of Henri—that is, as a spectre blocking fulfilment. He was so carried away by this first sign of mademoiselle’s confidence that he misread the feverish plea in her eyes and completely misinterpreted her timorous confusion. Eager, boyish, and a little frightened himself, he caught her hand, holding it fast: “Oh, and do I not!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Well, mademoiselle, you shall hear what I have so far withheld. The Marquis de St. Valier wears a peculiar ring, once seen one could not mistake it; I noticed it particularly the night he was examining Captain Delouche. Mademoiselle, the man who lifted my papers in the stage-coach wore such a ring.”

Her reaction surprised him considerably and her reasoning even more. She seemed all at once to have been caught up on wings to flame with new fire, and her quick rewarding smile quite dazzled him. “Then withhold it still, monsieur,” she implored him passionately, her eyes like stars, “if you regard me even a little and would put me for ever in your debt mention it to no one . . . the reason must be obvious.”

“It is obvious why Monsieur de St. Valier would wish it,” Monsieur Courcel told her, a faint suspicion, as astonishing as it seemed impossible, stirring uneasily in his mind.

“Oh, the Marquis!” Lalage dismissed him with convincing indifference. “Naturally, I was thinking of my father. He is no longer young, monsieur; he cannot begin all over again, and this incident you mention would greatly tell against him. You can understand that those who pretend to believe he bribed De St. Valier to withdraw his evidence would welcome your story. Oh, monsieur, I implore you for my sake, who will prize you for it, forget what you told me.”

Of course, he promised and received in turn mademoiselle’s smiling agreement to a drive on the morrow. Madame was flat against it, but consented finally on being anxiously pressed to go along. Lalage, she perceived, really wished it and that was a fairly safe criterion her heart had not weather-vaned in the Comte’s direction. Moreover, mademoiselle declined the country always precious to lovers. She must see certain Paris streets, especially a queer rag-tag place where three roads conjoined and the old houses wore a startled, weary look. And nothing in all the city, neither the pretentious palace, thoroughly snubbed by His Majesty, nor the luxurious gaming-houses extending Montespan’s expensive culture, nor yet the elaborate bathing palaces patronized by ladies of distinction, perhaps not the best, pleased her half so much as a certain grilled iron balcony standing out like a stiff bangs from the brows of the tall old house near the intersection.

As a matter of fact, Madame Rainville thought Little Mademoiselle unnecessarily appreciative on more than one occasion, and Monsieur le Comte tiresomely attentive, but this mild irritation was completely eclipsed by the final annoyance. The young persons absorbed in their own chitter-chatter, it was she who caught sight of the magnificent equipage swirling towards them down the Vaugirard road. Gleaming in jewels, the six white horses tossing pale green and purple plumes, the splendid sight drew on. Madame leaned hard upon her cane, her eyes like gimlets, and an amused half-contemptuous smile curving her sunken lips; no need to guess at the identity of the proud creature who disported this extravagance; only one woman in France delighted in such extreme and savage splendour. Monsieur Courcel forced himself from the pleasant Eden of Lalage’s smiles and ordered his coach to stand aside, that De Montespan, whose coachman was angrily thundering for place, might sweep past trailed by her present satellite whose coach looked vaguely familiar.

Contrary to precedent, the grand dame stopped and, disregarding the ladies, beckoned the young Comte to approach. Not with the best will he obeyed, his plumed hat weaving a courtly arch for the Royal favourite. Montespan was in amiable temper; she had been visiting her three children, newly installed in their palatial house at Vaugirard, and had been relieved to find that Maintenon saw no need for more frequent visits—even the baby could do without her. And there was such interest afoot! Smiling, she indicated by a lazy gesture of the hand Monsieur Courcel’s companion and challenged him: “Wicked young man, why have you hidden your find? The old gorgon looks fierce, I admit, so perhaps we must forgive you. And who may the dainty shepherdess be?”

“Mademoiselle Gremion,” the Comte informed her with quiet dignity, and was deeply annoyed to see the treacherous beauty biting back laughter from her scornful lips. Nor was he reconciled or the less suspicious when, on dismissing him a moment later, she urged upon him in the most gracious manner to bring mademoiselle to her next reception. Montespan’s carriage rolled by and Monsieur Courcel, turning to rejoin the ladies, was arrested by a familiar voice calling to him, and a little annoyed to discover his father’s periwigged head thrust out at him from the oval window of the second carriage. Monsieur le Comte had the audacity to believe his father’s sainted years should incline him toward gentler pastimes and kinder company. Monsieur le Duc appeared to have some difficulty with speech, and his eyes, fixed with reluctant fascination upon Lalage’s golden loveliness, had a look in their depths, at once incredulous and terrorstricken.

“Who is she, Aime?” he demanded, with startling, unaccustomed directness.

“Mademoiselle Gremion,” his son repeated, conscious of a quite unreasonable resentment, and a trifle shortly added, as an afterthought: “Mademoiselle is a stranger here, but Madame Rainville, her benefactress, is doubtless known to you, sir—I have heard she was a famous hostess in her time.”

Monsieur le Duc slumped back against his cushions, a greenish pallor overspreading the sagging flesh of his face. His son was alarmed. “Monsieur, you are ill! Can I help you?”

“No, no, Aime. I am quite all right; just tired. These abominable jaunts back and forth are killing,” Monsieur le Duc explained nervously, and, putting a grip upon himself, went on: “no use to chide you, Aime, the De la Fertés always had an eye for beauty. Bring the girl to St. Germain before La Montespan changes her mind . . . so that is Mademoiselle Gremion!” Monsieur le Duc shrugged. “Singular, my dear Aime, I thought for a moment—ah, well, it matters nothing what I thought; the tricks old eyes and certain colourings play upon one are amusing but not important. Did you say mademoiselle comes from Brittany?”

“From Charante,” Aime corrected, impatient to be gone. Monsieur le Duc dismissed the matter with a smile. “My apologies to the ladies, Aime. I shall do myself the honour of calling upon Madame Rainville shortly.”

Receiving which flattering intelligence Madame Rainville nodded approvingly. Certainly Monsieur Courcel might assure the Duke of a hearty welcome. And so he may, she finished to herself; the old wolf has lost his teeth and I my flavour. But aloud she said after a little: “La Montespan may be the most beautiful woman in France to-day, but I remember one fairer, and it would not surprise me if Monsieur le Duc remembered her also.”

Madame Rainville felt very certain that Monsieur de la Ferté would suspend his visit until Mademoiselle Gremion had been presented to Montespan—an honour madame was determined to block as long as possible. Consequently, when Lalage came to pay her usual respects on the following morning, she was thrown into a flurry of anxiety to find madame complaining of a dozen ills. She could not move, her limbs ached, her head swam, and she refused to eat—at least while mademoiselle was present. The long ride had been too much for her, and Lalage was full of contrition and almost sent the old lady into genuine hysterics with her frantic concern, her hot footstones, messy liniments and boiling broths. Monsieur Courcel was distressed and continued distressed as day succeeded day with no hopes of prying mademoiselle from her duty. By the end of a week what he had dreaded actually happened. Madame de Montespan condescended to inquire just why he was so tardy in presenting the Gremion beauty. When Montespan began to show signs of displeasure or impatience it boded ill for someone.

Fortunately, Madame Freslon was near at this time and her ready wit saved the situation. She did more, she shouldered some of the blame and offered to go at once to Vaugirard and take mademoiselle’s place; though she regretted having to admit that her grandmother had always been strangely averse to her attentions at such times. Little Mademoiselle, doubtless, amused her, and had not the sense to interfere with her superstitious cures.

But even this was not to take the smooth course they desired. Angeline found a completely disorganized household at Vaugirard when, with definite instructions from Montespan, she descended upon the place one rather cheerless afternoon. The servants wore a frightened look; the lower rooms, with blinds drawn, were damp and unaired and strewn about, where haste had discarded them, were several articles of strange apparel. From above stairs came the muffled sound of agitated conversation. This rise and fall of indistinct words produced a vibration that pervaded the whole house and acted like a blight. Always contemptuous of the opinions of those who served her, Angeline refrained from questioning the domestics and, ignoring their timid approaches, she went directly upstairs. The door to Madame Rainville’s suite stood ajar; it was impossible not to overhear the stormy words that flew to meet her. Angeline was momentarily thunderstruck. There was no mistaking that voice. It was Madame la Barre speaking, and, judging from her tirade, as well informed of what was afoot as Angeline herself. With the best grace possible under the circumstances, Angeline rapped perfunctorily and entered. Madame la Barre, thinner than ever, more beak-nosed than ever, was pacing up and down a strip of dark red carpet like a lioness in a cage.

In startling contrast to this turbulent vigour, Madame Rainville sat still as a withered age-enfoldened mummy, and behind her, like some spun-drift effigy of violated innocence, was Little Mademoiselle. Angeline spoke her greeting, repeated herself facetiously, and got no reply—unless a just barely perceptible shrug from her grandmother, a quickly smothered gasp from Lalage, and a fractional halt in La Barre’s stride, can be called reply. They ignored her completely. She might have been a piece of common furniture deposited in a corner for all the effect she made upon them.

Madame la Barre continued: “There was I, all those weeks, hiding that fellow, feeding him at Eugène’s orders, thinking him some honourable refugee. Thrice I had to submit to search warrants, and the last time Monsieur Bertin was plainly suspicious, and this Delouche had to remain suspended by a rope in a half-filled wine vat for several hours. The suspense nearly killed me; but then I have always played the fool for Eugène. It is for some good reason, I told myself, and redoubled my precautions. Finally word arrived for the fellow to depart—Eugène sends money, clothes, a horse, and I breathe again. I thank the good God my suspicions were unfounded and my brother merely pursuing his usual extravagant charities. Consider then my horror, madame, when only a few days later I am informed that Monsieur le Marquis is accused of betraying his trust. But, of course, I was furious. It is to laugh, I say to myself; a De St. Valier betraying his word—it is to laugh! Impossible, I tell myself; as well believe the sun won’t rise and waters reach the sea. Consider my suffering when I discover who the fellow was I had been hiding—aiding Eugène in this frightful ruin of self and all we hold dear!”

She choked, tearing at the frilled laces above her labouring heart with icy fingers and her angry gaze fixed upon Madame Rainville, hurried on: “And now I come here; I fly to you, madame, who have not only been my confidante, but my mother’s loved friend; and what do I find? The Rainville supporting the Gremion! Madame, for the love of heaven, be not deceived. Believe me, this girl is not what she seems.”

Startling as a thunderbolt in that impassioned atmosphere, old Madame Rainville’s cold voice sounded: “That I know, Élise, much better than you. And now suppose we act like sensible human beings and put our minds to the real problem.” She paused, glanced up at Angeline, and said impatiently: “Sit down, Angeline, your message can wait. I can guess its substance. Madame la Barre has bad news. . . .”

By nature averse to emotionalism of any kind, Angeline found herself sadly confused. “She has heard—so soon?” she gasped. “But even La Montespan only heard of it yesterday.”

The words out, she immediately realized their folly. The almost unbearable tension increased, closing about her like nightmare menaces, and three pairs of startled eyes fastened upon her like leeches. Madame la Barre, swaying on her feet, caught at a chair-back for needed support; Little Mademoiselle seemed to suspend breathing and madame’s fine old hands were blue upon her cane.

But it was she who found courage to ask sharply: “La Montespan heard what?”

Evasion was out of the question: Angeline felt sorry for the Comtesse even though she must know sooner or later and resign herself to Fate. She would have preferred to spare her, yes, but a malicious sense of victory filled her none the less when she said, looking straight at Lalage: “La Montespan received word that Monsieur de St. Valier is back from the south—he has been sent to the Bastille.”

Madame la Barre’s stiff angular frame seemed to snap and break with the harsh abruptness of a withered stick in a strong hand, and all her proud violence ebbed. “Oh, no, not that!” she cried, sinking into her chair, “not the terrible Bastille. . . . Oh, my brother—my poor Eugène. But there must be some mistake, some frightful mistake.”

“You are right,” a clear impassioned voice declared. It was Lalage, a burning, vital Lalage, speaking in the firm determined way of prophets. “There is a mistake—many mistakes, madame. To begin with, my father distrusts the noblesse too much to have made a compact with Monsieur de St. Valier, and I have letters to prove he did not attend monsieur to the south. If that much of these accusations be false, so may the rest be. As to Henri, someone may have deceived you with tampered messages.”

For the first time Madame la Barre condescended to give Little Mademoiselle the consideration due to a human being of like mind and emotions to herself. There was something about the girl’s luminous pallor that hinted of deep reservoirs of spiritual force and courage. She found herself believing in the hope mademoiselle extended, and, pride notwithstanding, she heard herself stammer:

“You are sincere, mademoiselle? You do not know of any reason why Monsieur le Marquis might have been tempted to help your—family?”

“None, madame. But I do know that Monsieur le Marquis’ reinstatement at Court depends upon his success—upon his success . . .” She stopped, uncertain, the thread of her comfort broken and lost. What had she been babbling, anyway? Monsieur’s reinstatement at Court. . . . Angeline’s cold eyes mocked her; old madame seemed to have died in her chair and the tall gaunt Comtesse, looking at her with the stupid glassy stare of a doll, all combined to confuse her senses; something sickening was happening inside her—her cool little smart logic writhed like a worm upon a hook, and hope was turned to cruel disillusionment. Out of this swirling confusion up soared the dire fact that a reinstatement was not the question to be considered, but Monsieur le Marquis’ life . . . and he had thrown away success—he had thrown away his life, and for what? Oh, she knew! The panic of her heart confirmed it and she had lied when she denied a possible reason for his paradoxical behaviour. But no matter how she blacked the face of truth, he must be saved. . . . Oh, if only they did not stare at her so; eyes, eyes, hungry, inquisitive eyes, boring into the heart of her misery!

Like cooling ice to this wild fever came the startling memory of Monsieur Courcel’s infatuation, and straightaway the blood rebuked her, from head to heel, in a burning, bitter flood of shame. But no matter! No matter! What price was too high for the right to hug for ever the dream of monsieur’s dear mad gallantry! God had heard her prayers for Henri; God must know the continual fervent prayer that abode with her now.

All these wild thoughts were in the seemingly interminable moment while no one spoke and all watched her. Then, in her neat scissors-clipping voice, Angeline broke the silence: “It is indeed fortunate that mademoiselle’s opinion should coincide with ours, for I am privileged to tell you that Madame de Montespan has taken a great fancy to Mademoiselle Gremion and is disposed to take her part in this unfortunate tangle.”

“Do you mean to say that Montespan would accept this girl’s interpretation rather than ours?” Madame la Barre, highly shocked, found it difficult not to shriek like a fish-wife. “Do you realize, madame, that you as much as insinuate that the Marquise will temper her influence as this—this—chit of a girl may direct!”

“Oh, not exactly, my dear Comtesse, your overwrought nerves are responsible for some of the confusion. But even at that you cannot have forgotten that La Montespan was not unprovoked in her little spite against Monsieur de St. Valier.”

“Ah, then it is spite. You admit that it is spite, Angeline Freslon. . . . Mother of God, we are lost! Better the plague than Montespan’s spite!” In desperation, yet with an air patronizing and far from winning, she turned to young Lalage: “My dear girl, I have been harsh; I regret it. As you love God be charitable; influence that terrible woman for good if you can.”

Angeline flashed her sabre smile: “Nothing so difficult as that will be required, which is fortune, for La Montespan does not welcome pleas nor preachments nor persuasion. Mademoiselle has only to comply to a simple request and the Marquise will cheerfully and effectively do the rest.” She was quite her cool self by now, poised, smug, and maddeningly reasonable: “To be quite frank,” she pursued in the calming tone one adopts toward fractious juveniles, “if I had not been so astonished at finding Madame la Comtesse here, and so at a loss to understand what the fuss was all about, I could have saved us this nerve-wracking and melodramatic quarter-hour.”

Madame Rainville struck the floor sharply with her stick. “Tut! Come off your hobby-horse, Angeline. Our nerves may be frayed but our minds are fairly bright. As for myself, I much prefer melodrama to tragedy; but then, I always had more heart than common sense, and more wit than good taste. I suppose you may not tell us what the admirable Montespan desires mademoiselle to do?”

“I may say that Madame de Montespan commands mademoiselle’s presence not later than four o’clock on Thursday. Two whole days in which to think things over, Mademoiselle Gremion—that should be sufficient.”

Lalage Gremion met Angeline’s dark, mocking smile with quiet self-assurance. “It is more than sufficient, madame,” she answered, head high and eyes flashing. “Have the kindness to represent my gratitude to Madame de Montespan and say that I shall wait upon her favour Thursday not later than four.”

Madame la Barre was beside herself; she had just returned from an audience with Colbert. He could do nothing for her, not that he was entirely indifferent; he had the greatest respect for Monsieur de St. Valier’s ability, and had not the least doubt that his singular behaviour was occasioned by quixotic nonsense which time would reveal. He had put himself to the trouble of going to see the Marquis, and found him cheerfully reading Horace. He had absolutely no explanations to offer nor any complaints to lodge. Monsieur Colbert’s well-known patience had come near breaking. It was unreasonable of a man to refuse to exert himself in his own behalf; to deny danger, laugh at evidence, and politely go back to his verse! With characteristic bluntness Colbert had told the Comtesse that with nothing better to report he dared not approach the King.

Louis was short with him as it was, deeply offended for having his generosity to the mother of the new Comte de Vexin challenged by a common fellow who understood nothing but finances. He was the further vexed to have the miserable trifle necessary for the alterations at Saint Germain and the extensions of the original plans for Versailles labelled extravagance—as if Heaven’s favourite son should put himself to counting pennies like the wretched creatures who stank to the stars! But Colbert gloomily admitted to having stuck to his stubborn facts and horrid figures. With war in the offing, which meant an interruption of trade and commerce, it was no time for foolish waste. Accursed honesty! Foolish waste! His Majesty had remained ominously silent—Jove displeased and above dispute with brutes easily ground to powder. No, unless De St. Valier was ready to reveal all he knew concerning Delouche and Gremion, Colbert could do nothing for him with the King. Nevertheless, he had procured a permit for Madame la Barre to visit her brother, and the mere recollection of it sent the poor lady into recurring spasms of tears.

She had been so wrought upon by the sight of him in such circumstances that his calm had put her into a palsy of terror. It was frightful—like the calm of a death-chamber with this dreadful difference, that the living dead jested! Ah, but she was not a Colbert, he had not deceived her. “Eugène!” she had cried. “Oh, my dearest brother, to think I should find you thus . . .” And he had grinned at her like the dear small mischievous boy he had been.

“Oh well, Élise, I had not thought to stand in the footsteps of immortals so soon, either!”

What a lovesome idiot! Tears starting afresh, she recalled word for word the futile conversation: “Eugène, be serious. Tell the truth about this wretched business,” she had begged, “you can at least reveal what was in the papers you yourself prepared. And what in the name of Heaven made you buy a Gremion ship?”

“Because I wanted a good ship, my dear,” he had said humorously, “and you are all wrong about the papers; I am totally lacking in commercial genius, figures, and dates, profits and losses—my dear Élise, I had much rather read bad verse.”

“That terrible woman means to destroy you,” she had cried, desperately trying to rouse him to the sense of his danger.

“Yes?”

“Oh, be warned, Eugène! This prank of yours has gone too far. Madame Freslon as much as admitted that De Montespan means to dictate the terms of your punishment, subject to Mademoiselle Gremion’s demands and wishes.”

“Say that again, Élise.”

“I said subject to Mademoiselle Gremion’s desire. It is one of Montespan’s whims to pretend sympathy for mademoiselle.”

That had made him serious enough. “Sympathy! That creature has no sympathy. It is some monstrous trick; Élise, for pity’s sake, keep her away from that woman . . . little, helpless, alone, what could she do against Montespan?”

Such an outburst was so foreign to the Marquis that it offended her sense of fitness as much as its content irritated her. She had announced with asperity: “Well, the girl has promised to go, Eugène; nor would I stop her. She is not a bad little thing, and really quite intelligent—I have hopes she may help us.”

His disapproval had been instantaneous and severe. “Since when have we gone about begging for help? I absolutely forbid it, Élise—I should forbid it in any case, even if I did not believe it a malicious gesture designed to destroy and not benefit us. Depend on it, De Montespan means to get at me through this new victim; though who has put it into her head I must leave you to guess. It is evident that Montespan believes she can hurt me by persecuting Mademoiselle Gremion.”

“And would it not?” Élise had asked faintly, not liking the look of him, word nor gesture.

“Don’t be a fool,” he had answered, with an air of estrangement never marked before in their altercations; he made her feel just that—a fool, and cut off from him entirely. “If you really want to escape further humiliation, go back to La Vendée at once and take Mademoiselle Gremion with you.”

That was his final contribution after all her tears and implorations, and nothing more was to be had from him. Despairing and angry beyond expression, she had been forced to retreat, and here she was back at Vaugirard, where Madame Rainville was making ready in her own secret fashion for to-morrow’s fateful audience.

Monsieur Courcel had sent a message saying he would attend them at their convenience and arrange all the details of the trip. Lalage was in her room fighting her own particular battle. At times she sat mouse-still, facing mentally situations the most dire she could conceive; frightening possibilities born of whispered tortures peculiar to the justice of the great. Or again, her old flaming energy asserted itself, and she flew about the chamber like a bird beating its wild wings against restricting bars. Fear vanished for the moment, and a kind of exultant fury possessed her, a feeling that submission and compromise and beggary were all of a piece and rank cowardice not to be tolerated even in imagination. Somehow she must find a better way.

In the morning she was strangely calm; dressed with extreme care and listened to Madame la Barre’s endless instructions about proper procedure with grave and patient attention. Madame Rainville remained curiously aloof, lying back in her chair absorbed in thoughts apparently the most calming; she had the look of a woman basking in sunshine beside a droning waterfall. Not until Monsieur Courcel’s coach was heard entering the drive did she appear to take definite notice of Lalage, who waited so quietly for the farce to begin. Sitting up sharply, she called her: “Lalage, come here, child!”

Head on side, she studied the dainty little figure obediently gliding towards her. “Gracious me, what a lovely thing you are!” she exclaimed almost fretfully, as though this represented a sudden obstacle. “Now then, tell me, are you as brave as you are lovely? Are you woman enough to have guessed the reason for this honour conferred upon you by La Montespan?”

Lalage’s little head lifted higher, the line of her chin unmistakably set. Her eyes lighting, she answered quietly: “I do not know whether I am brave, madame, or a coward, but I guess the part I must play, and I shall play it. La Montespan is proud of her wit; an ignorant country girl should afford her excellent opportunity to display it. What else could she have in mind? But yes, if I am stupid enough to amuse her she will grant me a wish as queens do in fairy-tales—and only the Montespans in real life.”

Despite her relief, Madame Rainville was a little disturbed, such worldly wisdom was just a shade shocking. However, she had more sensible counsel in mind. “Do not count on the fairy touch with Montespan,” she told the girl with forceful emphasis. “You may believe me, mademoiselle, that whatever your real desire, if you want to attain it, the lady must not guess it. Look at me, Lalage; I’m not just gabbling like an old yarn-weaving woman. I know. La Montespan is a clever, unscrupulous woman, as lacking in real charity as she is rich in spite. Dear child, these many weeks I have watched you, and I have found much to please me. If I fear for you now, it is not because you lack perception but because you have a heart. Little one, hide it—and if you want to succeed, beware of standing in La Montespan’s light; leave to her the shining, the asking, and the giving.”

That was a strange drive to Lalage. Time and thought lost definite meaning and became dim, dreamlike motives in some gigantic scheme beyond human understanding. She was being whirled along a dusty, sun-drenched road by forces not of her choosing, to play a predestined part in a predestined comedy spun from spite and maliciousness, to which she had contributed nothing, and was nevertheless chosen to satisfy. At her side Monsieur Courcel sat almost as thought-bound and perplexed; with this difference, however, that his dread was tangible and his sense of utter helplessness, where he should have been bold, the real mystery. His spiritual inertia was not the result of a too sudden facing of threatening facts, but the tardy discovery of certain long-existing truths that shattered rather badly the romantic illusion he had thus far managed to retain. And the bitterness and repression and shock were due to the ugly fact that Monsieur le Duc was responsible for the destruction of those happy illusions.

Monsieur Courcel was the fruit of a late marriage, and at his mother’s death he had been sent to her people at Bloi, where, on their quiet estates, he had indulged his boyish dreams of a story-book father. Monsieur le Duc had sustained these dreams fairly well, appearing at Bloi now and then to cut a splendid figure and bearing gifts and fine promises. At Aime’s name-day and on all holidays more gifts arrived and, select as the seasons, the proper tutors appeared, and at the proper time a commission in the navy was accomplished, since this was Aime’s singular choice.

It was only since his furlough, generously extended by reason of an infection of the bone of his arm, that he had made the not uncommon discovery that his father was almost a stranger; a stranger whose perfect manners and cordiality kept one at arm’s length and in whom existed some repellent barrier not to be readily overcome. The young Comte had come to feel and bitterly resent his inability to fraternize with this father he had idolized from afar. And only to-day had come the final and thoroughly disillusioned references to Mademoiselle Gremion. Monsieur le Duc had hinted much too broadly that once Montespan had done with the girl to her satisfaction she would not forget Monsieur Courcel’s help in the matter.

Unaffected and simple in his own honest reasoning, Monsieur Courcel was not only troubled by this unwelcome intelligence but afraid, realizing too late that something more serious than he had deemed was brewing and Mademoiselle Gremion was to be made the victim. Once, since his furlough, he had been fated to observe Madame de Montespan about her favourite pastime; amusing His Majesty by caricaturing in her pertinent acid way the poor dupes picked for the slaughter—for it had been a slaughter; a ruthless rending of such virtues, capabilities, talents, and little vanities as the poor wretches lived by and could no longer hope to live by in the coveted circle about the King. Imagining this fate in store for Mademoiselle Gremion, and blaming himself for the calamity, he frightened Lalage by suddenly gripping her hands and announcing histrionically: “Mademoiselle, whatever happens, trust me to make such reparation as I can. Believe me, if I could restore to you Monsieur Delouche, your peace and security—everything as it was before that fateful night—by giving my life, how gladly I would give it.”

She tried to accept this outburst lightly, to pass it off with a laugh, but her startled eyes betrayed her. “Oh, monsieur, you take yourself too seriously, or else you think me too much a fool for my pleasure. This Montespan cannot eat me—she may even prove kind.”

A beatitude she repeated for her own benefit with such positive energy that despite a dozen sickly tremors her spirits began to revive and her natural curiosity to assert itself. Montespan or no Montespan, she was keenly interested when the famous town, on its gently sloping hill above the Seine, came into view. She was thrilled to be at last driving along Lenôtre’s terrace, so much talked of and so newly completed. Even Madame Rainville, who cared little for improvements upon nature, was stirred to remark upon this grand gesture. What a sight it must be when the Court came out to take the view; what a place upon which to preen and curry favour!

“Indeed, yes, madame,” Monsieur Courcel admitted gloomily. “The measurements are astonishing, two thousand six hundred and twenty-five yards by an hundred and fifteen feet! Madame de Montespan was so delighted she was moved to express her praise to Lenôtre in person.”

That they were eagerly expected was evident, the usual barriers were miraculously absent and nowhere were they required to wait. A smiling lady-in-waiting announced that Madame de Montespan would receive mademoiselle in her private cabinet; Monsieur Courcel might attend her if he so desired, but Madame Rainville, contrary to custom, was required to remain in the anteroom. Angeline Freslon, very impressive in white satin and the incomparable emeralds, came to confirm these beneficent orders. The which Madame Rainville received, together with hasty apology, in her laconic fashion. Mademoiselle Gremion said nothing; she was fighting panic, the unreasoning terror of a very little girl lost in a bristling black wilderness. She felt as though to move were a physical impossibility, her hands and feet were inanimate lumps of ice and her head and heart a madhouse of swirling dervish-dread. She was sure that no power existed strong enough to release her from herself and give her strength to go on with the ordeal before her. And then from just beyond the ornate door before which she stood enslaved came the sound of fluted laughter, quickly muffled. Little Mademoiselle suffered a stinging medicinal shock. Her recoil was more characteristic and deep-rooted than she knew. Her head cleared as by magic and she was no longer conscious that timidity and cowardice existed. Montespan’s laughter, keen as a rapier, had cut through the accumulated fear of weeks at a single thrust. In place of trembling fear, anger sang through her white body, challenging a latent arrogance scarce dreamed. So the King’s woman laughed at her! Well, she was no longer afraid. She was eager to see this woman who held the King in the hollow of her hand, for whose wanton tastes the people were bled of their labours; this proud dame who worshipped God in churches and frequented dens of iniquitous poisoners by stealth; who was founding a dynasty of wastrels to burden the poor for generations and had no better amusement than to laugh at misery!

The room she entered was rather small and boasted the admirable peculiarity of being in effect an elevated extension of a very long and uncommonly large room, from which it was separated by heavy curtains looped back with gold cord. This ingenious arrangement afforded double opportunity; it permitted Montespan to gaze down upon her company with the detached amiability of an empress, and afforded these happy mortals a truly regal view of their reigning Deity. Everything breathed of matchless pride, walls, ceiling, floor, all came in for their share of porcelain, gold leaf and gleaming tile and marble. The finest works of art in whatsoever field were represented here, everything that boundless wealth might buy, assembled to make a fitting frame for this pearl among faithless women. But not a hint of comfort.

Those who entered here entered to behold and to adore the chief jewel of this rare collection and not to indulge in mere physical comfort. The Montespan, in her elevated throne-like chair, occupied the only seat in the whole place. She sat there now, her voluptuous charms overlaid with such profusion of jewels that to look at her was a critical test of the eyes. Below her, in the gorgeous apartment, close ranks of ladies and their gallants were ranged round the walls and everyone waiting in tense silence. Entering, from a side door that led into the cabinet, Lalage saw this brilliant spectacle at a glance, and Angeline, no less than Montespan, thought to see her flinch, fall into confusion and forthwith start the show. Instead, little and dainty, very golden and sweet, she advanced by easy, graceful stages, made her double curtsy and, smiling a little, yet another.

Extremely susceptible to flattery, La Montespan was both pleased and vexed; the little provincial knew how to greet royalty and did it very well. It was not what she had counted upon; but, on second thought, was natural—the moon bowed before her had not astonished Montespan. She gave no sign of approval, however, for it pleased her inordinate vanity to withhold the graciousness she could summon at will, until caprice moved her. She perceived that Mademoiselle Gremion was to all appearances quite as much at ease in this frozen silence as a bird in a cool garden. Extraordinary! Montespan was interested despite herself. Raising a small, plump, ring-laden hand in an arrogant gesture, commanding attention already hers, she began speaking. She affected the Royal plural and spoke in a liquid, flowing voice, which, none the less, was vaguely irritating:

“We are pleased to receive you, mademoiselle. How seems our city after the leisurely quiet of the country?”

“Very like I found Paris on the occasion of His Majesty’s wedding—full of confusion, madame, of common noise and common people and very little beauty!”

Now here was impertinence! The minx spoke up as boldly as a cardinal and in a voice clear as silver bells. Someone tittered. Montespan’s sapphire glances shot from left to right like darts of blue flame, but, thanks to weaving fans and monstrous periwigs, the culprit was not detected. This was not the time to laugh. That was to come later. Her displeasure broadcast, she resumed in cooling accents:

“It is to be hoped, mademoiselle, that you may come to think better of us and to forget the sad past. Ah, well, we can at least express our regret that you should have lost so bold a lover, so brave a father, and so excellent a protector, all in the self-same hour. But such are the risks of piracy, we are told.”

“And you were told rightly, madame,” Lalage agreed blandly, not a flicker of self-consciousness in her guileless face. This time all that saved the titterer was the sudden noisy stir that arose at the back of the room as a tall, elegantly attired gentleman merged from the group about the doorway and, followed by a sheepish guard, came striding slowly forward. Montespan glanced at Mademoiselle Gremion and saw nothing of her real agitation; a flash of recognition in the big amber eyes and a faint tensing of the full red lips, nothing more.

The Marquis de St. Valier paid his respects in the grand manner; which La Montespan received in kind with uncommon grace, and neither one was the least deceived by the other’s stately hypocrisy. Of all the courtiers whom the King had once esteemed, none had attracted her so much and none remained so indifferent. Outrageous behaviour in a Court famed for intrigue, light gallantries and common licence! The Marquis, she delighted to see, could not quite mask his surprise on finding Mademoiselle Gremion in this spectacular key position. Here, at last, was her long-waited opportunity for revenge. The stage set, the audience breathlessly attentive, and, like a cat with her kill, she deliberately prolonged the suspense and was delightfully thrilled at the deepening discomfort manifest everywhere. That De St. Valier was watching her with growing suspicion and thinly-veiled contempt only added to her enjoyment. She smiled and, turning, sent out a shower of dazzling beams from the mesh-work of jewels strung about her ample bosom and a scarcely less artificial warmth of smiles as she said:

“Mademoiselle, you will begin to think us cruel indeed, or worse, foolishly capricious. We appreciate that the Marquis de St. Valier cannot be a welcome encounter; we have, however, kinder reasons than first appears for arranging this unwelcome meeting.”

One little timid, searching glance Lalage flung him; question and appeal and something infinitely sweeter in her strange golden eyes. But had he been blind he could not have ignored her more completely. His steady, sardonic eyes dwelt for a chilling moment upon her tremulous loveliness and strayed away without a flicker. She might have been Stardust or shadow—herself, she simply did not exist for him! Yet her hurt was quickly lost; she saw how changed he was, how haggard and weary. Deny her, though, he must; he had suffered for her, and every frozen line in his thin austere face told a tragic story, to which the pain in her heart beat time. Because she was alive to his suffering and impending danger, she realized, in a blinding flash, the fullness of Madame Rainville’s warning. Montespan, the cold voluptuary, whose passions fed on adulation and whose mind was full of trickery and jealous plotting, had no pity as she had no love. Oh, madame was wise indeed—to get from this capricious woman mercy or justice one must cry loudly for the opposite; deny the heart’s desire seventy-seven times and Montespan would straightaway force it home. Her resolution taken, Little Mademoiselle replied in her clear, bird-like voice, that carried to every part of the room:

“Madame, your generosity is well known, and now your sympathy upholds me. For that I must speak my gratitude; you are kind, yes, yet I find myself doubting it when I must share your patronage with one who deceived and betrayed and destroyed my happiness.”

If the Marquis was startled by this denunciation, none perceived it. His air was as coldly detached, his glances as calmly aloof as before, yet his shock was so great he wondered how he continued to stand there with death in his heart. And then, with a rush of savage pleasure, he saw how this made his own plan more secure and Montespan’s vengeance negative. What could she do to him after that? What, indeed! Yet she managed to sting him, however, and sorely. Affecting pity for Lalage, she declaimed:

“Ah, poor young girl! Monsieur le Marquis, have you nothing to say? Can you hear this pitiful accusation untouched? Do you offer no defence?”

“For what, madame?” His voice was like velvet, yet Little Mademoiselle trembled and froze to hear it.

“For destroying this poor girl’s innocence,” the malicious dame purred sweetly.

“The pirate’s daughter?” monsieur cut back, lifting a facetious eyebrow. “It seems we stand at cross-purposes, madame, and that I fail to understand in any particular what you mean.”

Creature of moods, none long-lived, La Montespan was fast tiring of her calm pose; patience was such a galling yoke even in pastime. “But that shall be remedied, monsieur,” she assured him quickly, tapping her slippered foot and speaking on a rising inflection significant to those who knew her. “Nothing is further from our mind than to remain at cross-purposes with the Marquis de St. Valier, to whom we admit being indebted for many services and much amusement. . . . Monsieur, it is our pleasure to remember these things and to put an end for ever to misunderstandings between us; in short, it is our hope and dearest wish to see Monsieur le Marquis reinstated in his rightful place about His Majesty’s person. And we delight to report that this is readily accomplished subject to a trifling compliance on Monsieur le Marquis’ part as proof of his goodwill.”

“And what is this trifling compliance, madame?”

La Montespan assumed a grave and thoughtful expression, seeming to consider and weigh her words with punctilious care. Her quick darting eyes gloated over the hungry eagerness of the sensation-loving crowd waiting upon her dictum. Only De St. Valier, whose concern should have been great, and Mademoiselle Gremion, nursing her own dogged resolution, seemed unimpressed. Monsieur Courcel, she perceived with heightening displeasure, wore a horrified expression and, but for the Duke’s restraining hand upon his arm, must have made a fool of himself. She was sorely fretted to give way to temper, to scream and indulge the scenes that made her such a terror to the peace-loving King. The thing was proving less amusing than Angeline Freslon had represented; in fact, it was fatiguing and promised to bore her thoroughly.

But at least Angeline interpreted correctly the flashing glances levelled upon her and hastened to forestall general disaster. “Ah, madame!” she cried, in perfect imitation of an awestruck bumpkin in the presence of a miracle, “your generosity weighs you down; it is too great a drain upon tender sensibilities—for all our sakes, madame, spare yourself.”

Montespan smiled, not the least deceived nor placated, and resolved to pack Madame Freslon back to Paris on the morrow. However, she took the cue and made good use of the lead extended. “It is only too true, the importunings of a sensitive heart are severely trying. Monsieur le Marquis, we have been much affected by mademoiselle’s story, and the thought of her cruel situation haunts us persistently. Poor unfortunate girl! Her lover a fugitive, her father a suspect. . . . Oh, why enumerate these incredible disasters? Better a slight cure than ineffectual pity. We have come to the obvious conclusion, monsieur, that Mademoiselle Gremion deserves something more than idle sympathy and is entitled to the restitution of honour and security which we deem it necessary to command at your hands, monsieur.”

Now it was coming! Poor Lalage shuddered and, despite her brave resolution, the colour ebbed from her face and her eloquent eyes dilated with fear. Signs Monsieur le Marquis was quick to perceive for all his cold abstraction, and as quickly misinterpreted. His reply was prompt and politely frigid:

“I am forced to admit as great darkness as ever. Permit me to ask bluntly just what Madame la Marquise condescends to demand of me as a sign of goodwill.”

“This, monsieur,” she almost shouted, furious at her inability to provoke a scene. “It is demanded that you marry your mountebank’s daughter, the pirate’s mistress, and live to thank her for saving the proud De St. Valier head!”

Well, there it was! Her proud thunderbolt delivered and her whole world rocking. Not so much as the rustle of a single fan to disturb the awful calm; supreme tribute to supreme daring yet something was wrong, some over-stepping of bounds held inviolate even to these idlers gathered before her. Monsieur de St. Valier was not the crushed wretch she had anticipated, a disquieting circumstance equally plain to Angeline Freslon to judge by her sickly hue and desperate expression. But the girl surpassed everything, the look of her inspired superstitious awe; she stood there white as driven snow with a queer wild light in her strangely coloured eyes—a vital fire that seemed to defy time and circumstance. Montespan shuddered; she had seen such a look in the eyes of a heretic brought in from the hills to terminate his tortures in death. Oh, she could scream, and she would certainly make Angeline Freslon pay for the annoyance. But just when the tension was becoming intolerable, Monsieur de St. Valier had the wise audacity to laugh, a laugh chilling as mistral and his voice, speaking slowly and distinctly, somehow suggested a dark river under ice.

“Madame, were I less certain of paying for it, I should feel ashamed to wreck such admirably thought out plans. But on sound reflection it seems rather pointless to save my head at such a price as you propose.”

The ruthlessness of it even startled Montespan, and more than one pair of masculine eyes sought Mademoiselle Gremion with pity and heard her little smothered cry with rising indignation; and only Monsieur le Duc’s caution prevented his son from rushing then and there to the stricken little figure.

“Fool!” whispered the valiant Duke, “do you want to lose your own thick head? . . . the girl will be the easier had for a little abuse.”

A consolation that put the young man completely out of countenance and gave him over to hideous speculation. La Montespan sprang to her feet, the ripple of her garments like the sudden sweep of waves, and her bitter tongue, unleashed at last, put all else to flight. Never had wit and vindictiveness a better advocate. She was terrible and sublime in her audacity; she dragged out the De St. Valier from their decent graves and clothed their bleaching skeletons with musty vices and mouldering vanity; and she dangled Monsieur le Marquis before the company like a monkey on a string. But anger overrode the natural brilliance of her wit and sarcasm and killed its flavour. She came at last to tedious repetition, angry and childish, very feminine and foolish. The Marquis de St. Valier should marry the little Gremion! He should marry the pirate’s daughter and his bridal equipage should be a mourning coach, his livery all black, his riders thieves and mountebanks, and the priest to perform the ceremony, a begging friar!

To which Monsieur de St. Valier replied very calmly: “Not so, madame. Not in any circumstance nor for any reason whatsoever would the Marquis de St. Valier accept the bride you offer, the honours you suggest or the distinction you would confer.”

She was scarlet with fury, and not unlike a glorified serpent glancing from side to side, its glamorous scales gleaming in sunlight; she swayed to the rhythm of her anger. “So—you prefer death to Mademoiselle Gremion?”

Monsieur le Marquis made her a bow. “Madame, I prefer death,” he said with calm finality.

Madame la Barre had shut herself up in her room at Vaugirard; she was exhausted, in despair and cut off from all hope. That Little Mademoiselle had come back from her audience with Montespan a pale crushed shadow of herself, was a negligible detail; that she had failed in her mission was an added grudge against her. But for that Lalage cared nothing—for that nor any other possibility; her little world, so lately filled with simple homely joys, which she had failed to reverence properly, lay in ugly ruins. She was alike relieved of the ability to feel further surprise at anything or suffer acutely. What approached the nearest to mild surprise was the realization that Madame Rainville, neither upon that terrible homeward journey nor through this long week since, had seemed the least downhearted.

Yet Lalage knew that Madame Rainville was devoted to the De St. Valier and fiercely proud of their old traditions. And to be sure someone had to stay sanely at the helm, and it was madame who assumed command and to her secret amusement employed Monsieur Courcel to run her errands. But everything had failed. The King, who, until Montespan had wheedled him into it, had not contemplated other than the cooling of Monsieur le Marquis’ stubborn pride in the Bastille, was now forced for authority’s sake to stand firmly by his promise. La Montespan, more lovely than ever, must be humoured and had beside a pretty way of reminding her Royal lover of the new son she had lately presented to him. Louis had shown his appreciation rather handsomely—or so he thought—by no longer dooming his little dears to secrecy and bestowing upon them a household of their own at Vaugirard with that excellent woman, Maintenon, for gouvernante. But when he hinted as much, the adorable Mortemart had had the intolerable insolence to laugh, a pretty way of telling His Majesty that his viewpoint was curiously awry and his gratitude deficient. No, Montespan insisted upon her nice vengeance; insisted upon its execution before Louis set off for his precious war. Surely a king destined by heaven to humble the stupid Dutch and to glorify the true faith, could find the means to wed a man to a maid.

But, fortunately or unfortunately, Louis was sincerely devout. Even Montespan could not persuade him to take the church sacraments lightly. Besides, how could anyone, king or prelate, force a man to take vows he refused when the extreme penalty of death failed to terrify him? Montespan, playing with her pinktailed rodents, sweetly suggested the torture. To which the King, with characteristic dignity and much to his credit, replied that abuse of power was a breach against the crown, and that loyalty to the memory of Anne of Austria, obliged him to bear in mind the service rendered to her by the De St. Valier.

Excellent sentiment but so unwholesome to the delectable Marquise as to render her quite ill and everyone doomed to wait upon her, nearly demented. It was exceedingly uncomfortable. Even in his private cabinet the King enjoyed no sense of security; at any hour the lady might present herself in tears or in a temper. To bar her entry was impossible—or wellnigh impossible. Having conferred the semi-sacred right of entry upon her, it was almost as unthinkable to repeal the privilege now as it would have been unseemly to revise a divinely inspired scripture. Nor could heaven’s favourite prince, and the world’s grand monarch, admit before hired soldiers that his mistress was too much for him! In this undignified dilemma His Majesty was finally moved to seek advice of that cool-headed work-ox, Jean Baptiste Colbert. Colbert leaped at the chance; sentiment was beside the point, said he. What riled the Marquis de St. Valier was not the thought of having a wife thrust upon him, for this was a common misfortune likely to befall any man, and besides not infrequently lent itself to remedy. No, what really riled the Marquis was the unprecedented indignity of being arrested like any common scoundrel, and on a loose unsubstantiated charge at that! Louis, who, when he gave himself the trouble to think at all, generally fixed upon basic truths, made the pertinent remark that in that case Monsieur le Marquis should have behaved like a sensible man and not like a monk sworn to eternal silence. A stupidity Colbert proceeded to defend, and even went so far as to maintain that all past experience with perverse mortals supported the belief that only an innocent man could behave in such an asinine fashion. Which was not the right tack to take with His Majesty; and but for a quick counter-suggestion made on the spur of the moment, Colbert had found himself in deeper disgrace than ever. He said:

“Sire, there is the girl, Mademoiselle Gremion. Something might be had of her, that is to say, if she were wisely managed.”

That was better. Though, naturally, Louis did not say so. His dismissal of the minister was, however, more genial than it had been for many weeks past, and what was more, he actually confessed to a readiness to think the matter over!

An auspicious circumstance destined to coincide happily with Mademoiselle Gremion’s sudden bold resolution to seek the King. After days of nameless despair, youthful energy soared on the rebound; His Majesty, whose magnificent person she had been privileged to glimpse from a balcony would, by grace of heaven’s authority, know how to dissipate these stupid difficulties. But yes, she saw now that this was the action they should have adopted in the first place. They should have gone straight to the King.

It was a little disconcerting, though on second thought quite characteristic, to discover that Madame Rainville had quietly anticipated this sudden resolution and was ready for the undertaking even to the packing of their bags; which she explained as a sensible expedient, for one could not rush an audience with a king nor perhaps terminate one’s visit quite at will either. However, thanks to the aforementioned incident, mademoiselle had her appeal granted almost at once. Whereupon Madame Rainville showed herself nervous for the first time, and Lalage had to submit to treatment that seemed little short of ridiculous and, under the circumstances, almost cruel. But, knowing her world, madame commanded a famous hairdresser and a still more famous dressmaker to work their magic upon Little Mademoiselle. Fortunately both had the artistic sense to stress her elfin daintiness. They dressed her in palest green, with faint threads of gold and orchid, broidering cascading frills and fluted ribbons; her lovely hair they had the good judgment to leave to its own sweet cunning, the little curls escaping to nestle like gold sun-web about her little ears and smooth, white brow. She was so lovely at the finish, her strange eyes sparkling with hopeful purpose and that peculiarly radiant quality of soul shining from her little face, that madame suffered momentary compunction about letting such a delightful innocent loose upon a susceptible king.

But mademoiselle was once again soaring on wings and utterly oblivious to self. Her one and only thought Monsieur le Marquis, who must be saved from his own destructive righteousness . . . and one day he would learn to laugh again as he had laughed long since under her balcony. To laugh and ride away on other gallantries, and, laughing, he would forgive and forget her.

She had scarcely any wait in the King’s antechamber. Soft-footed guards in elaborate uniforms melted before her like shadows before sunlight, and she was much too absorbed in her own paramount thoughts to notice the sly interchange of knowing looks her appearance created. A very magnificent youngster with bold eyes opened the door of His Majesty’s cabinet and in melting tones advised mademoiselle she might enter and make her triple curtsy.

It was a comparatively plain room, with tall windows facing out upon a charming stretch of garden, to which she was bidden, and here in the window embrasure stood the King. His apparel was amazingly simple in an age of ridiculous ornamentation, and this, united with natural dignity and graciousness, created a remarkable impression. Louis de Bourbon could not have been other than King; it was his talent and mission to perfect a role more often badly played and shortly to be shelved. One quick, timidly appraising glance Lalage cast upon her King as he turned from the window, and even this simple movement she perceived was somehow suggestive of grandeur.

Louis, aside from his obsession for demi-godhead, or possibly because of his belief in his own divinity, was, in the main, a kindly disposed mortal. In an age of tortures and burnings and gross superstitions he seldom resorted to extreme harshness and rarely gave rein to temper. In that he exercised a divinity more allied to charity than the Holy Inquisitors whose heaven-granted authority he shared. Possessing so much natural graciousness, it was not surprising therefore that on facing about and seeing mademoiselle so very little and golden, a kind of human buttercup meekly bowed before him, that the King should have been moved to instant sympathy. Louis could not more resist a pretty woman than forgo his own vanity. He was astonished and agreeably astonished. La Montespan, who less than an hour ago had forced a scene upon him, had said the girl was pretty—a pretty little country wench . . . but here was no bucolic wench breathing coarse vitality and stubborn desire; here was an exquisite little creature as dainty and delicate as a flower and so endearingly meek!

“Mademoiselle, pray rise,” said the King quickly in his charming voice, and so gently Lalage instantly lost all fear of him.

“Sire, I am very ignorant . . . if I should seem impertinent that will be the reason for it. Your Majesty will forgive me for not knowing how to address a great King.”

Her eyes shyly uplifted, intelligent yet childlike, affected Louis profoundly. He read in them an immense admiration and an ideal faith, a form of flattery seldom encountered. What a lovely unspoiled creature she was, thought the King, and, none more gracious when he chose, said smiling: “Mademoiselle, you have a communication, some request to make? Let us attend to that and forget majesty.”

Her agitation was charming. “Sire, except for the goodness of your heart, I should perish of fright. But oh! to whom could I turn? To all my prayers I had but one answer—the King, only the King can settle this dreadful affair.”

A lifetime at Court had taught her nothing half so subtle and persuasive. Susceptible though the King was to flattery, and suspicious of his flatterers, Louis sensed here a satisfying truthfulness. She was both serious and sincere; she really believed what she said, that only he had power, and, what was more subtly flattering, the will to help her. His grave dignity a little tempered with secret amusement, he encouraged her:

“Mademoiselle, you think too highly of Royal powers; a king is not always successful, even in simple matters. This request you have in mind, it has to do with the Marquis de St. Valier?”

“Yes, Sire.” The quick flush overspreading her cheeks and the spirited flash of her eyes, telling the brave tale of a brave heart, these honest signs charmed and pleased the King. Sensible of his sympathy, she told her tale somewhat incoherently, but with convincing forcefulness and a curious bias. Louis was genuinely astonished. This lovely, confiding, unspoiled child, plead against herself! She did not bring, as he had expected, some design whereby the Marquis might be humbled for his insolence, and at the same time absolved of his guilt relative to Gremion. She represented to His Majesty that it was all her fault that the Marquis had become thus entangled and that his chivalry prevented his saying so. There was very little rhyme or reason and no logic in what she said, but it was delightful to hear this pretty creature reiterate with fervour that only her King could exercise the necessary magic to bring Monsieur le Marquis to his senses and save him from ignominy and disaster. Louis studied her with deepening interest. Blind though he often seemed to the welfare and comfort and desires of others, he none the less revealed upon occasion intuitive flashes of insight into character and motives. He experienced such a flash now.

“Mademoiselle,” he spoke softly, “you have the Marquis’ welfare much at heart. Yet, judging from other sources, it would seem that the reverse should please you. Magnanimity of the sort is very rare. Mademoiselle, having seen you and heard your story, I confess that Monsieur de St. Valier’s conduct appears more incomprehensible than ever. Are you quite sure, mademoiselle, there is not something left unsaid?”

He observed with a stirring of discomfort the waves of shame and confusion rise and recede, leaving her face absolutely colourless and that one dainty hand stole to the laces about her throbbing heart. He guessed rightly the fight she had now, and often with modesty and pride, and that, as her stubborn little chin hinted, a rugged strain in her make-up must always in the end override all minor scruples and dictate the course to follow. But her eyes were tragic when she said, so low he could just hear her:

“Your Majesty, I have thought that Monsieur de St. Valier takes this stand on account of Captain Delouche. . . . Monsieur le Marquis believes I love him.”

Only the King’s unfailing courtesy prevented his betraying the amusement this illuminating and delightfully naïve confession induced. For indeed what now remained of mystery could all be cancelled by one small word. What love-struck gallant had acted otherwise? How stupid that none should have guessed it; but perhaps, as mademoiselle delicately suggested, they had not the sensibilities to understand. He addressed her very gently:

“Is he wrong, then, mademoiselle—about this Captain Delouche?”

“But no, Sire! That is—he is—very dear, like a brother, very, very dear, and I cannot believe he meant to war against Your Majesty’s ships. But——”

“But do you not love him as Monsieur le Marquis has the misfortune to believe,” the King finished for her.

“Oh, Sire, I should—I must . . . but indeed I cannot!”

“A not uncommon affliction,” His Majesty commented, smiling faintly. “It would appear, then, that our difficulty will be to convince Monsieur de St. Valier of the truth of this singular perverseness, which will relieve him of a superfluous sacrifice. And it may be necessary to ask you to repeat your statement before witnesses. Would you consent to that, mademoiselle?”

“But, of course, Your Majesty! An hundred thousand times if need be . . . and, Sire, could it be represented to monsieur he need never see me—afterwards. Might not that help a little? He has only to comply with Madame la Marquise’s wishes. He need not think of me.”

This once at least Louis was sincerely touched. In his inimitable manner, gracious and kindly, he commended her resolution and, terminating the interview, said:

“Have the kindness to appear at this same hour to-morrow, Mademoiselle Gremion.”

Monsieur de St. Valier dressed himself with more than usual care. He had no doubt that His Majesty’s summons augured a final and most uncomfortable exhibition for the gratification of Montespan’s malicious nature. For himself he cared nothing; what he dreaded was further humiliation and pain for Little Mademoiselle. How she must hate him! But she would soon forget. All plans thriving, the Swallow would soon stand in at Bordeaux and mademoiselle would receive news of Delouche and her father. There were other thoughts in his mind, troublesome and bitter, but none had guessed it. Nor was he the least humbled or even conscious of the rude stares of the orderlies and underguards formerly so flattering and attentive.

He entered the King’s cabinet in the leisurely manner of luckier days; he bowed with the same unconscious grace. His Majesty, however, was quite aware of the chilliness beneath this smooth exterior and noted with satisfaction that the Marquis seemed very worn. It had not agreed with him, this quarrel with his King!

Louis was eager to be done with the preliminaries of a very intriguing business; he said at once:

“Monsieur le Marquis, because in past times the De St. Valier have rendered notable service to the Crown, I cannot forbear representing to you once more the folly of rejecting the terms of your pardon. Surely, monsieur, it is not too difficult for a subject to foreswear pride when his King bends to solicit it.”

Monsieur de St. Valier was at loss how to take this—was it a trick or actual kindness? Montespan’s absence lent strength to the latter supposition. Louis, he knew, indulged these flutters of conscience off and on. He had himself seen the King write out an order on the Treasury to reimburse a workman for the loss of an ass in the excavation work at Versailles. . . . If a dead ass had such heart-appeal, why not a near-dead marquis? “I am grateful, Your Majesty,” he said a little wearily, “but, unfortunately, the terms to which I cannot concede removes the benefit of Your Majesty’s kindness.”

The King sighed, but with no sign of impatience or umbrage returned: “Ah—this mademoiselle must be a fright, a repulsive country wench that disgrace and exile—even death—seems more tolerable!”

“On the contrary, Sire, she is all that is lovely . . .” De St. Valier caught himself up shortly, shrugged and finished flatly: “A wholesome child of Nature and betrothed to a young man simple and sincere as herself, Sire, if in the past my house has had the honour of earning Your Majesty’s regard, permit me to ask that for their sake Your Majesty will dismiss any thought concerning my deserved fate and instead grant a pardon to mademoiselle’s lover.”

Louis’ handsome eyes glowed with suppressed merriment. These two were as good as a play. Mademoiselle, who must save this stubborn marquis, who, in turn, must save the equally stubborn damsel’s lover, whom she could not and would not love! Said the King sonorously: “Believe, me, monsieur, it is easier said than done—saving mademoiselle’s lover.”

A tap at the door seemed to startle the King who was so rarely shaken from his Jovian poise. Monsieur de St. Valier wondered if, after all, Montespan was to put in her final tortures here. Louis’ subsequent command strengthened the suspicion. Pointing to a closet opposite, he said: “Monsieur, be so kind as to retire for a moment; there is some confusion of appointments.”

The curtains of the closet had scarcely fallen in place behind him before the door of the cabinet opened and His Majesty, contrary to custom, addressed the applicant at once:

“Mademoiselle, you are not only prompt but early.”

Monsieur de St. Valier suffered a bad moment. So his darkest fears were to materialize; Montespan was to have her pound of flesh and at the hands of no common judge. What he thought of the King just then is better left unrecorded; what his thoughts of Little Mademoiselle too chaotic for sensible representation—it is doubtful whether he had dignified the wild clamour of head and heart by calling them thoughts. By grace of a small opening between the curtains he saw her—dearer than ever in her pale seriousness and sweet timidity. It was impossible not to overhear, and what mischief to his already agonized senses was the music of her words up-welling in a fierce tide from the hot little heart of her. He heard and thrilled and yet doubted that he heard, for she was saying:

“Sire, I pray God you have persuaded Monsieur de St. Valier to believe me—that his sacrifice is cruel and wicked and to no purpose whatsoever, and that I cannot possibly endure to have him throw away his future because of some mistaken pity for me.”

The King replied solemnly: “Alas, mademoiselle, Monsieur de St. Valier holds to his purpose; his mind is made up and even his King cannot change it.”

“And did Your Majesty tell him he need not see me again? Oh, it is such a short ceremony. . . . Sire, is there no way to convince monsieur that a moment’s shame is not too much to pay for a lifetime of usefulness thereafter?”

The King, realizing the force of her distress, interposed diplomatically: “Mademoiselle, the Marquis takes a different viewpoint; he is convinced that your lover should be the first consideration and prefers to waive his own pardon in favour of Captain Delouche. That, mademoiselle, is his final request.”

His words, deliberately chosen for their probable effect, yet Louis was not prepared for the wild release of impulse that sent Lalage to her knees before him to pour out the plea of her heart.

“Oh, Sire, you are all-powerful, noble, good! Do not let this terrible thing happen. My lover? I have no lover! I swear it, Your Majesty, I will go into a nunnery and foreswear sunlight for ever. But you are the King, Sire—you understand; Your Majesty knows what to do. Captain Delouche and my father, they have been foolish. Take away their ships, their property, and do with me what seems best, only suffer not Monsieur de St. Valier to throw his life away!”

Carried away on the current of her emotion, Little Mademoiselle forgot the King, forgot her fear, forgot humiliation, and very much her tempestuous self, finished vehemently, bobbing up like a small, fierce golden glow: “Oh, it is too much! How can he be so cruel and mean? So blind . . . love Henri Delouche—marry Henri Delouche, I suppose, and raise cabbages in the country? But I will not do it, Your Majesty. . . . Oh, Sire, your wisdom will surely find a way.”

Said His Majesty gravely: “Mademoiselle, unfortunately your charming sex so often denies the object of its affection, that to distinguish truth is often very difficult. It is regrettable but true that whereas a man may readily believe a woman when she says I love, he seldom takes her seriously when she says I do not love.”

Startled, she looked at the King, sifting his words, and when their subtle intent was plain, stood there still as a winter’s tree when winds have died at sundown. Then, lifting her small, proud head, she said clearly and distinctly: “Then it is simply done, Your Majesty. I do not love Henri Delouche because—I love Monsieur de St. Valier!”

Louis, whose courtesy was natural, could at times set aside the monstrous formalities that by degrees were stunting his original kindness. He did so now. With a glance toward the closet, he said:

“I rejoice to hear it, mademoiselle, for the Marquis de St. Valier did me the honour to confess a similar devotion not so long ago.”

And the King, always flattered to be arbiter of Destiny, whether for great or small, smilingly concluded: “But that is a subject for the Marquis himself to explain. I leave you, mademoiselle, in excellent company and your King’s pleasure.”

Which he did forthwith and had for his kindness a gratifying quarter-hour with Madame Rainville who was waiting in the antechamber. An interview which provided His Majesty with the happy means to check La Montespan’s unbridled arrogance without betraying his desire and satisfaction in the doing. It did more, for Madame Rainville’s incredible story of Gremion and De la Ferté revealed a source of wealth available to His Majesty through the simple expedient of pardoning crimes that already had paid him very well at one time and another. A prospect almost as pleasing to Louis as the one the Marquis de St. Valier was at that moment representing to Mademoiselle Gremion. He was saying:

He had a bit of trouble here, for mademoiselle’s little white arms were really very strong and possessive. “Oh, monsieur, must you concentrate on getting killed?”

Well, it seemed he could apply himself to happier pursuits with charming success, but her doubts on the matter quieted, he continued: “Dearest, the Swallow will soon return, and if I judge your father rightly, with a fortune in furs; after which it should be possible to convince His Majesty that I can serve him better in the new world than on a Dutch battlefield.”

The old mischief kindled in her eyes, and wrinkling her little nose, she interrupted him: “Oh, monsieur, you do this for me—you go to the savages who will not take offence at a pirate’s daughter?”

But he was done with subjection and sobriety and common sense. “Why not?” he teased, loving her impertinence no less than the brave sweet heart of her: “Are not men sometimes driven to show the depths of their devotion by going to the very devil? You must permit me a little heroism—the savages are said to be very handsome women!”

“They may be handsome,” she retorted, smiling back at him and toying dreamily with the lace on his sleeve. “Oh, they may be handsome, but I—I am very fierce . . . they shall not steal, scalp, nor convert you, my own Monsieur Black Lace.”

Two days later Montespan assembled her guests, got ready her notaries, and commanded the now humbled and acquiescent victims to appear before her. She was jubilant. Not only was she to succeed in her vengeance, but to have the additional sport of witnessing Marquis de St. Valier sign his marriage contract to the pirate’s daughter in the presence of numerous satellites and friends.

Everything progressed splendidly. The room was thronged with whisperers and scoffers; the victims appeared and created an instant sensation. Prospective bride and groom were both attired in unrelieved black, and, strange to say, the sombre hue was recklessly becoming—at least for all their solemnity there was some reckless disturbing atmosphere about them.

Montespan had the uneasy feeling that even now in defeat Monsieur le Marquis was not so much pitied as envied. Sweet soul, she did her best to dispel the illusion in her scathing introductory remarks. It must have been plain to the dullest present that the two now at her feet and called forward to sign away privilege, liberty, and honour, were the most contemptuous and miserable beings who had ever risked defying a beautiful termagant.

But never was such an anti-climax! Montespan, a moment since gloating over the complete humiliation of De St. Valier, her dearest wish at fulfilment, heard Madame Rainville’s announcement that fell now from a clear sky:

“Madame, it is true what I say—the Marquis de St. Valier cannot sign a marriage contract with Mademoiselle Gremion, for no such person exists, as the papers of one Monsieur Villon indubitably prove.”

A thunderbolt had been mild in comparison. Necks strained, and the ensuing hush bristled with suppressed excitement and unbelief. Even Marquis de St. Valier thought his aged friend slightly deranged by grief for him, and turned a probing glance upon Angeline, stationed behind the magnificent De Montespan. By the look of her she not only thought her grandmother mad, but was herself on the verge of swooning. La Montespan recovered, threatening lights burned in her brilliant sapphire eyes, and her full red lips shaped themselves for some biting cynicism destined never to be uttered.

His Majesty, the King, had entered; had acknowledged in his stately way the instant and abject adulation of the guests and, his clear voice penetrating to the furthest reaches of the vast room, declaimed with dignified emphasis:

“Madame, it is indeed true. All the proofs are in my possession and beyond cavil.”

And to her utter consternation and fury, Montespan beheld His Majesty smile upon the buccaneer’s daughter—clever minx that she was, dressing herself in black lace to emphasize the golden glory of her head!

“Yes, madame,” the King went on, “it is true there is no Mademoiselle Gremion, but it is our pleasure to bestow upon Marquis de St. Valier the hand of our charming ward, Mademoiselle Villon, in her own right. Baroness Larue and Comptesse de Brienne.”

Never had king a more kingly moment. The very silence bowed before him and every living creature hung upon his words as if in them were life and final destiny reposed. The proud Mortemart for once had no quip to undermine his sovereignty and demi-godhead. He had spoken and all the earth was silent!

Then, wrung from some intolerable depths and quickly suppressed, a hoarse cry put an end to majestic silence. His Grace, the Duc de la Ferté, had collapsed. Poor old gentleman, to judge by his purple countenance, it was apoplexy . . . but then his heart was known to have been failing.

Once more all Paris waited with bated breath the arrival of its king. Bright bunting and new flags and dark plumes of smoke teased the autumn air. Vendors of sweetmeats, wandering minstrels, and rascals with no better game than a dancing bear, flourished in the city. Poor wretches, with no provision for the morrow, spent their last coppers on bad wine and sang the King’s praises.

For Louis, be it known, was returning from a great conquest. There could be no doubt of that. Had not his entire city seen him off in the spring at the head of a mighty column of gentlemen so fine to look upon it dazzled the eyes? And had not the clever little men who wrote all day at neat little desks on neat paper, proclaimed with pride that an hundred thousand Frenchmen were massed on the frontier and all for the glory of France? But yes, what was more, these same indefatigable panegyrists related with gusto that the wicked Duc de Lorraine, who could not see the honour of receiving a trampling army into his territory, had been successfully driven into the wilderness.

For every such delectable bit of news loyal enthusiasts gave thanks in a bumper and a lusty howl. Tavern poets recounted the marvel: the King had, by free passage (they did not stress this) through Julic, turned the whole line of the Maas, passed the Rhine at Wesel, and bravely pressed on to the Yssel where William of Orange, a boy of twenty-two, was mustering a few untrained troops.

Ah, but that was not the end of courage. The great Turenne represented that forcing the passage was quite unnecessary; success could be accomplished by re-crossing the Rhine; re-cross it they did and according to the pamphleteers and street singers, in the face of overwhelming odds and through the deepest swell of the turbulent Rhine.

More songs, more praises, more hungry peasants dancing on the green. France was about to be made a heaven on earth where one would get his hunk of bread and garlic without question! Think of it, the King had taken Arnheim, and if he had so been minded, might have taken Amsterdam. Even the panegyrists had some difficulty in explaining why he had not. It seemed that two obstinate brutes by name of De Witt were aware of the easy possibility and had offered the King Maestricht and some other little towns for peace.

What impertinence! Rage filled the bosom of every good tinker and cowherd at thought of it. Peace for the Dutch who refused to bow to the Grand Monarch and to subscribe to his most righteous faith? Never! The conqueror turned aside and began to demolish forts no longer offensive. And the Dutch, by neat little repeals and edicts and riots, and the murder of the troublesome De Witts, stirred up allies and a hero or two besides.

It was very depressing really. Louis had half a mind to hurry. But, fortunately, his dignity was saved. William cut the sluices, letting the sea into Holland; Amsterdam was now safe from the French and Louis at liberty to call a halt and repair back to Paris where his people sang his praises and the delectable Montespan waited to reward his heroic sacrifice and patient toil.

Besides, the roads were becoming disagreeably muddy. With a properly dignified retinue, the great King decided to turn back before he must wallow in the dear soil his courage was defending.

On a little balcony that stood out like a bangs from the narrow brows of a tall old house at a crossroads, Little Mademoiselle, all gold from head to heel, sat waiting, her heart throbbing painfully, her eyes soft as starlight through a haze of fleecy cloud. At her side old Madame Rainville leaned upon her cane and thought of other armies returning without this glamorous welcome . . . and of Honoré, the dear beloved.

Guns boomed somewhere. A shower of fireworks ascended into the sky; more gun-play, more fireworks, and a storm of hoarse shouting. Said madame sardonically: “What music empty bellies make! Poor fools, a tenth of this waste in powder and fireworks had fed them all a season. But then, what would they have had to shout about. . . . Lalage, are you really determined to go to America with Eugène?”

“But of course. And you will come, too, dearest madame.”

“That I will not. What would I do at my age in a country of savages and a few dusty gallants? No, child, unlike His Majesty who will be vastly the richer for granting pardons and this trading licence to Monsieur Courcel and Eugène, all I should get for my agreeableness would be certain death. And, unlike Monsieur le Duc, I have nothing to gain by that either—that is to say from your point of view, my dear.”

Lalage darted back from the rail and put her young arms about the beloved figure. “But you forget Monsieur Courcel and Eugène have contracted for such a marvellous ship—not one of those tubs that are generally used in the fur trade. And then remember Papa is a magician on the sea and Henri will be there, too, and old Jean who knows an hundred thousand tricks for comfort. And think of seeing the new world—such a wonderful world, according to Henri, that he would not even come back this once except to bring out our ship. It seems a miracle, madame, that all should end so happily even for Monsieur Courcel, and that we are really privileged to sail whither all history lies a-making!”

“Tut! If it ends well for Monsieur Courcel he has you to thank for it, my dear, who refused to press the old Duc’s villainy. History—ah, well, I too have helped to make it. My Honoré and I, when we threw in our lot with the Huguenot party, thinking, in our young simplicity, to thereby establish liberty and tolerance, ignorant as we were of the political schemes involved—perhaps because of that ignorance we, too, were really making history. For though we did not know it, our defeat was a-sowing broadcast of ideals too vigorous for this old land. You, dear child, in whom the ancient vigour blends with the new, will establish our dream . . . in that strange distant country you and your children will see those blood-bought ideals take root and begin their imperishable destiny. Tut! I preach—how very stupid. High time, my dear, to send the old lady home to Rainville where the rats are remarkably tolerant of ranters.”

Lalage clung closer. “Well, if you must be stubborn, Hector and his music-master shall go to Rainville with you—rats are as fond of pipings as preachings; and good Maria shall care for you like a mother.”

The din grew louder, the sound of horses’ hoofs beating in slow rhythmic unison distinct and drawing nearer. Lalage trembled—like a small gold leaf in a warm summer wind, thought madame, smiling wistfully, and with quick gentleness she pushed the girl away. “There, see, they come round the bend. Tut, you will need bright eyes to pick the one true knight from out that gleaming company!”

But of course she saw him at once; a little behind the King he rode, very splendid in gold-embroidered uniform, his horse stepping daintily as though he knew the part he had to play. Of course she saw him! Out of a sea of faces his alone was real. Leaning forward eagerly she waved her handkerchief. But it was Madame Rainville who saw the great honour paid her. His Majesty the King uncovered to the dainty vision on the balcony and, moved to one of those charming gestures reminiscent of his romantic youth, he turned, and over his shoulder called some smiling order to Monsieur de St. Valier.

Little Mademoiselle realized the significance of it when the Marquis, cutting out from the ranks, sped across the intervening angle and came to a stop under her balcony. She did not hear the King’s laughter, nor the cheers of his men. How should she hear or see anything when the lover of her heart came riding out of the sunset as she had always known he must? leaning down dangerously she made the pretence of throwing something, and said gravely:

“Oh, sir—I trust her head is not broken!”

Then he, laughing up at her, his eyes mischievous and tender, responded in mock gravity: “Oh, Little Mademoiselle, I would that my heart were as sound.”

And to her delight and everlasting wonder he produced from somewhere a little curious wooden doll and waved it aloft like a treasured ensign.

“You dear! You darling!” she cried, and almost lost her balance. “You really kept it, as you said you would. . . .”

His teasing smile caressed her. “Now you perceive where rests the blame for my hard-heartedness, mademoiselle. Alas, the mischief will take much sweet mending——”

“Well, well, you two,” madame’s voice fell like a bright blade between them, “come out of Eden. The earth is not half bad, you know—for lovers!”

THE END

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

[The end of Black Lace, by Laura Goodman Salverson]