The Helmet of Navarre Part 36

"Aye, and you must stay happy. Pardieu, what does it matter whether your husband have yellow hair or brown? My brother Henri was for getting himself into a monastery because he could not have his Margot. Yet in less than a year he is as merry as a fiddler with the d.u.c.h.esse Katharine."

"You have made me happy, to-night at least, monsieur," she answered gently, if not merrily.

"It is the most foolish act of my life," Mayenne answered. "But it is for you, Lorance. If ill comes to me by it, yours is the credit."

"You can swear him to silence, monsieur," she cried quickly.

"What use? He would not keep silence."

"He will if I ask it," she returned, flinging me a look of bright confidence that made the blood dance in my veins. But Mayenne laughed.

"When you have lived in the world as long as I have, you will not so flatter yourself, Lorance."

Thus it happened that I was not bound to silence concerning what I had seen and heard in the house of Lorraine.

Mayenne took out his dagger.

"What I do I do thoroughly. I said I'd set you free. Free you shall be."

Mademoiselle sprang forward with pleading hand.

"Let me cut the cords, Cousin Charles."

He recoiled a bare second, the habit of a lifetime prompting him against the putting of a weapon in any one's hand. Then, ashamed of the suspicion, which indeed was not of her, he yielded the knife and she cut my bonds. She looked straight into my eyes, with a glance earnest, beseeching, loving; I could not begin to read all she meant by it. The next moment she was making her deep curtsey before the duke.

"Monsieur, I shall never cease to love you for this. And now I thank you for your long patience, and bid you good night."

With a bare inclination of the head to Lucas, she turned to go. But Mayenne bade her pause.

"Do I get but a curtsey for my courtesy? No warmer thanks, Lorance?"

He held out his arms to her, and she let him kiss both her cheeks.

"I will conduct you to the staircase, mademoiselle," he said, and taking her hand with stately politeness led her from the room. The light seemed to go from it with the gleam of her yellow gown.

"Lorance!" Lucas cried to her, but she never turned her head. He stood glowering, grinding his teeth together, his glib tongue finding for once no way to better his sorry case. He was the picture of trickery rewarded; I could not repress a grin at him. Marking which, he burst out at me, vehemently, yet in a low tone, for Mayenne had not closed the door:

"You think I am bested, do you, you devil's brat? Let him laugh that wins; I shall have her yet."

"I will tell M. le Comte so," I answered with all the impudence I could muster.

"By Heaven, you will tell him nothing," he cried. "You will never see daylight again."

"I have Mayenne's word," I began, but his retort was to draw dagger. I deemed it time to stop parleying, and I did what the best of soldiers must do sometimes: I ran. I bounded into the oratory, flinging the door to after me. He was upon it before I could get it shut, and the heavy oak was swung this way and that between us, till it seemed as if we must tear it off the hinges. I contrived not to let him push it open wide enough to enter; meantime, as I was unarmed, I thought it no shame to shriek for succour. I heard an answering cry and hurrying footsteps.

Then Lucas took his weight from the door so suddenly that mine banged it shut. The next minute it flew open again, mademoiselle, frightened and panting, on the threshold.

A tall soldier with a musket stood at her back; at one side Lucas lounged by the cabinet where the duke had set down the light. His right hand he held behind his back, while with his left he poked his dagger into the candle-flame.

Mayenne, red and puffing, hurried into the room.

"What is the pother?" he demanded. "What devilment now, Paul?"

"Mademoiselle's protege is nervous," Lucas answered with a fine sneer.

"When I drew out my knife to get the thief from the candle he screamed to wake the dead and took sanctuary in the oratory."

I had given him the lie then and there, but as I emerged from the darkness Mayenne commanded:

"Take him out to the street, d'Auvray."

The tall musketeer, saluting, motioned me to precede him. For a moment I hesitated, burning to defend my valour before mademoiselle. Then, reflecting how much harm my hasty tongue had previously done me, and that the path to freedom was now open before me, I said nothing. Nor had I need. For as I turned she flashed over to Lucas and said straight in his face:

"When you marry me, Paul de Lorraine, you will marry a dead wife."

XVII

_"I'll win my lady!"_

Lucas's prophecy came to grief within five minutes of the making. For when the musketeer unbarred the house door for me, the first thing I saw was the morning sun.

My spirits danced at sight of him, as he himself might dance on Easter day. Within the close, candle-lit room I had had no thought but that it was still black midnight; and now at one step I pa.s.sed from the gloomy house into the heartening suns.h.i.+ne of a new clean day. I ran along as joyously as if I had left the last of my troubles behind me, forgotten in some dark corner of the Hotel de Lorraine. Always my heart lifts when, after hours within walls, I find myself in the open again. I am afraid in houses, but out of doors I have no fear of harm from any man or any thing.

Though Sir Sun was risen this half-hour, and at home we should all have been about our business, these lazy Paris folk were still snoring. They liked well to turn night into day and lie long abed of a morning.

Although here a shopkeeper took down shutters, and there a brisk servant-la.s.s swept the door-step, yet I walked through a sleeping city, quiet as our St. Quentin woods, save that here my footsteps echoed in the emptiness. At length, with the knack I have, whatever my stupidities, of finding my way in a strange place, I arrived before the courtyard of the Trois Lanternes. The big wooden doors were indeed shut, but when I had pounded l.u.s.tily awhile a young tapster, half clad and cross as a bear, opened to me. I vouchsafed him scant apology, but, dropping on a heap of hay under a shed in the court, pa.s.sed straightway into dreamless slumber.

When I awoke my good friend the sun was looking down at me from near his zenith, and my first happy thought was that I was just in time for dinner. Then I discovered that I had been prodded out of my rest by the pitchfork of a hostler.

"Sorry to disturb monsieur, but the horses must be fed."

"Oh, I am obliged to you," I said, rubbing my eyes. "I must go up to M.

le Comte."

"He has been himself to look at you, and gave orders you were not to be disturbed. But that was last week. Dame! you slept like a sabot."

It did not take me long to brush the straw off me, wash my face at the trough, and present myself before monsieur. He was dressed and sitting at table in his bedchamber, while a drawer served him with dinner.

"You are out of bed, monsieur," I cried.

"But yes," he answered, springing up, "I am as well as ever I was.

Felix, what has happened to you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SORRY TO DISTURB MONSIEUR, BUT THE HORSES MUST BE FED."]

I glanced at the serving-man; M. etienne ordered him at once from the room.

"Now tell me quickly," he cried, as I faltered, tongue-tied from very richness of matter. "Mademoiselle?"