Chapter 20

"And shall I flee my dangers? Shall I run, in the face of my peril?"

"Ah, monsieur, perhaps your life is nothing to you. But it is more to me than tongue can tell."

"My love, my love!" He snatched her into his arms; she held away from him to look him beseechingly in the face, her little clutching hands on his shoulders.

"Oh, you will go! you will go!"

"Only if you come with me. Lorance, it is such a little way! Only to meet me in the next square. We will slip out of the gates together--leave Paris and all its plots and murders, and at St. Denis keep our honeymoon."

"Monsieur," she said slowly, "I am told that my cousin Mayenne offered a month ago to give me to you for your name on the roster of the League. Is that true?"

"It is true. But you cannot think, Lorance, it was for any lack of love for you. I swear to you--"

"Nay, you need not. I have it by heart that you love me."

"Lorance!"

"But when you could not take me with honour you would not take me. Your house stands against us; you would not desert your house. Am I then to be false to mine?"

"A woman belongs to her husband's house."

"Aye, but she does not wed the enemy of her own. Monsieur, you are full of loyalty; shall I have none? I was born, my father before me, in the shadow of the house of Lorraine; the Lorraine princes our kinsmen, our masters, our friends. When I was orphaned young, and penniless because King Henry's Huguenots had wrenched our lands away, I came here to my cousin Mayenne, to dwell here in kindness and love as a daughter of the house. Am I to turn traitor now?"

"Lorance," he was fiercely beginning, when Mlle. de Tavanne bounded in.

"On guard!" she hissed at us. "They come!"

She looked behind her into the corridor. Mademoiselle gave her lips to monsieur in one last kiss, and slipped like water from his arms. I was at his side, and we busied ourselves over the trinkets, he with shaking fingers, cheeks burning through the stain.

The ladies streamed into the room, the lovely Mme. de Montpensier alone conspicuous by her absence. Mme. de Mayenne's face was hot and angry, and bore marks of tears. Not in this room only had a combat raged.

"Never shall he come into this house again," madame was crying vigorously. "I had had him strangled, the vile little beast, an she had not seized him. I will now, if she ever dares bring him hither again."

"You certainly should, madame," replied the nearest of the ladies. "You have been, in the goodness of your heart, far too forbearing, too patient under many presumptions. One would suppose the mistress here to be Mme. de Montpensier."

"I will show who is mistress here," the Duchesse de Mayenne retorted. Then her eye fell on Mlle. de Montluc, making her way softly to the door, and the vials of her wrath overflowed upon her:

"What, Lorance, you could not be at the pains to follow me to the rescue of my child! Your little cousin, poor innocent, may be eaten by the beasts for aught you care, while you prink over trinkets."

Mademoiselle faced her blankly, scarce understanding, midst the whirl of her own thoughts, of what she was accused. The little Tavanne came gallantly to the rescue:

"I did not follow you either, madame. We thought it scarcely safe; Lorance could not bear to leave this fellow alone."

Mme. de Mayenne glanced instinctively at her dressing-table's rich accoutrements, touched in spite of herself by such care of her belongings.

"I had not suspected you maids of such fore-thought," she said with relenting. "I vow for once I am beholden to you. You did quite right, Lorance."

XXVI

_Within the spider's web._

Mademoiselle slipped softly out of the room, taking our hearts with her. Our one desire now was to be gone; but it was easier wished than accomplished, for there remained the dreary process of bargaining. Mme. de Mayenne had set her heart on a pearl bracelet, Mme. de Brie wanted a vinaigrette, a third lady a pair of shoe-buckles. M. Étienne developed a recklessness about prices that would have whitened the hair of a goldsmith father; I thought the ladies could not fail to be suspicious of such prodigality, to imagine we carried stolen goods. But no; the quick settlements defeated their own ends: they fired our customers with longing to purchase further. I was despairing, when at length Mme. de Mayenne bethought herself that supper-time was at hand, and that no one was yet dressed. To my eyes the company already looked fine enough for a coronation; but I rejoiced to hear them thanking madame for her reminder, with the gratitude of victims snatched from an awful fate. We were commanded to bundle out, which with all alacrity we did.

Freedom was in sight. I was not so nervous on this journey as I had been coming in. As we passed, lackey-led, through the long corridors, I had ease enough of mind to enable me to take my bearings, and to whisper to my master, "That door yonder is the door of the council-room, where I was." Even as I spoke the door opened, two gentlemen appearing at the threshold. One was a stranger; the other was Mayenne.

Our guide held back in deference. The duke and his friend stood a moment or two in low-voiced converse; then the visitor made his farewells, and went off down the staircase.

Mayenne had not appeared aware of our existence, thirty feet up the passage, but now he inquired, as if we had been pieces of merchandise:

"What have you there, Louis?"

"An Italian goldsmith, so please your Grace. Madame has just dismissed him."

He led us forward. Mayenne surveyed us deliberately, and at length said to M. le Comte:

"I will look at your wares."

M. Étienne smiled his eager, deprecating smile, informing his Highness that we, poor creatures, spoke no French.

"How came you in Paris, then?"

M. Étienne for the fourth time went through with his tale. I think this time he must have trembled over it. My Lord Mayenne had not the reputation of being easily gulled. For aught we knew, he might be informed of the name and condition of every person who had entered Paris this year. He might, as he listened stolid-faced, be checking off to himself the number of monsieur's lies. But if M. Étienne trembled in his soul, his words never faltered; he knew his history well, by this. At its finish Mayenne said:

"Come in here."

The lackey was ordered to wait outside, while we followed his Grace of Mayenne across the council-room to that table by the window where he had sat with Lucas night before last. I clinched my teeth to keep them from chattering together. Not Grammont's brutality, not Lucas's venom, not Mlle. de Tavanne's rampant suspicion, had ever frightened me so horribly as did Mayenne's amiable composure. He made me feel as I had felt when I entered the tunnel, helpless in the dark, unable to cope with dangers I could not see. Mayenne was a well, the light shining down its sides a way, and far below the still surface of the water. You hang over the edge and peer till your eyes drop out; you can as easily look through iron as discern how deep the water is. I seemed to see clearly that Mayenne suspected us not in the least. He was as placid as a summer day, turning over the contents of the box, showing little interest in us, much in our wares, every now and then speaking a generous word of praise or asking a friendly question. He was the very model of the gracious prince; the humble tradesmen whom we feigned to be must needs have worshipfully loved him. Yet withal I believed that all the time he knew us; that he was amusing himself with us. Presently, when he tired, he would walk casually out of the room and send in his creatures to stab us.

Had I known this for a truth, that he had discovered us, I should have braced myself, I trow, to meet it. The certainty would have been bearable; I had courage to face ruin. It was the uncertainty that was so heart-shaking--like crossing a morass in the dark. We might be on the safe path; we might with every step be wandering away farther and farther into the treacherous bog; there was no way to tell. Mayenne was quite the man to be kindly patron of the crafts, to pick out a rich present for a friend. He was also the man to sit in the presence of his enemy, unbetraying, tranquil, assured, waiting. It seemed to me that in a few minutes more of this I should go mad; I should scream out: "Yes, I am Félix Broux, and he is M. le Comte de Mar!"

But before I had verily come to this, something happened to change the situation. Entered like a young tempest, slamming the door after him, Lucas.

M. Étienne clutched me by the arm, drawing me back into the embrasure of the window, where we stood in plain sight but with our faces blotted out against the light. Mayenne looked up from two rings he was comparing, one in each hand. Lucas, hat on head, came rapidly across the room.

"So you have appeared again," Mayenne said. "I could almost believe myself back in night before last."

"Aye; at last I have." Lucas was all hot and ruffled, panting half from hurry, half from wrath.

"You saw fit to be absent last night," Mayenne went on indifferently, his eyes on the ring. "I trust, for your sake, you have used your time profitably."

"I have been about my own concerns," Lucas answered lightly, arming himself with his insolence against the other's disdain. In a moment he had mastered the excitement that brought him so stormily into the room. He was once more the Lucas who had entered that other night, nonchalant, mocking.

"Pretty trinkets," he observed, sitting down and lifting a bracelet from the tray.

The close kinship of these men betrayed itself in nothing so sharply as in their unerring instinct for annoying each other. Had Lucas volunteered explanation for his absence, Mayenne would not have listened to it; but as he withheld it, the duke demanded brusquely:

"Well, do you give an account of yourself? You had better."

Lucas repeated the tactics which he had found such good entertainment before. He looked with raised eyebrows toward us.

"You would not have me speak before these vermin, uncle?"

"These vermin understand no French," Mayenne made answer. "But do as it likes you. It is nothing to me."

My master pinched my hand. Mayenne did not know us! After all, he was what M. Étienne had called him--a man, neither god nor devil. He could make mistakes like the rest of us. For once he had been caught napping.

Lucas leaned back in his chair with a meditative air, as if idly wondering whether to speak or not. In his place I should not have wondered one moment. Had Mayenne assured me in that quiet tone that he cared nothing whether I spoke, I should scarce have been able to utter my words fast enough. But there was so strange a twist in Lucas's nature that he must sometimes thwart his own interests, value his caprice above his prosperity. Also, in this case his story was no triumphant one. But at length he did begin it:

"I went to Belin to inform him that day before yesterday Étienne de Mar murdered his lackey, Pontou, in Mar's house in the Rue Coupejarrets."

"Was that your errand?" Mayenne said, looking up in slow surprise. "My faith! your oaths to Lorance trouble you little."

Lucas started forward sharply. "Do you tell me you did not know my purpose?"

"I knew, of course, that you were up to some warlockry," Mayenne answered; "I did not concern myself to discover what."

"There speaks the general! There speaks the gentleman!" Lucas cried out. "A general hangs a spy, yet he profits by spying. The spy runs the risks, incurs the shames; the general sits in his tent, his honour untarnished, pocketing all the glory. Faugh, you gentlemen! You will not do dirty work, but you will have it done for you. You sit at home with clean hands and eyes that see not, while we go forth to serve you. You are the Duke of Mayenne. I am your bastard nephew, living on your favour. But you go too far when you sneer at my smirches."

He was on his feet, standing over Mayenne, his face blazing. M. Étienne made an instinctive step forward, thinking him about to knife the duke. But Mayenne, as we well knew, was no craven.

"Be a little quieter, Paul," he said, unmoved. "You will have the guard in, in a moment."

Lucas held absolutely still for a second. So did Mayenne. He knew that Lucas, standing, could stab quicker than he defend. He sat there with both hands on the table, looking composedly up at his nephew. Lucas flung away across the room.

"I shall have dismissed these people directly," Mayenne continued. "Then you can tell me your tale."

"I can tell it now in two words," Lucas answered, coming abruptly back. "Belin signed the warrant, and sent a young ass of the burgher guard after Mar. I attended to some affairs of my own. Then after a time I went round to the Trois Lanternes to see if they had got him. He was not there--only that cub of a boy of his. When I came in, he swore, the innkeeper swore, the whole crew swore, I was Mar. The fool of an officer arrested me."

I expected Mayenne to burst out laughing in Lucas's chagrined face. But instead he seemed less struck with his nephew's misfortunes than with some other aspect of the affair. He said slowly:

"You told Belin this arrest was my desire?"

"I may have implied something of the sort."

"You repeated it to the arresting officer before Mar's boy!"

"I had no time to say anything before they hustled me off," Lucas exclaimed. "Mille tonnerres! Never had any man such luck as I. It's enough to make me sign papers with the devil."

"Mar would believe I had broken faith with him?"

"I dare say. One isn't responsible for what Mar believes," Lucas answered carelessly.

Mayenne was silent, with knit brows, drumming his hand on the table. Lucas went on with the tale of his woes:

"At the Bastille, I ordered the commissary to send to you. He did not; he sent to Belin. Belin was busy, didn't understand the message, wouldn't be bothered. I lay in my cell like a mouse in a trap till an hour agone, when at last he saw fit to appear--damn him!"

Mayenne fell to laughing. Lucas cried out:

"When they arrested me my first thought was that this was your work."

"In that case, how should you be free now?"

"You found you needed me."

"You are twice wrong, Paul. For I knew nothing of your arrest. Nor do I think I need you. Pardieu! you succeed too badly to give me confidence."

Lucas stood glowering, gnawing his lip, picturing the chagrin, the angry reproaches, the justifications he did not utter. I am certain he pitied himself as the sport of fate and of tyrants, the most shamefully used of mortal men. And so long as he aspired to the hand of Mayenne's ward, so long was he helpless under Mayenne's will.

"'Twas pity," Mayenne said reflectively, "that you thought best to be absent last night. Had you been here, you had had sport. Your young friend Mar came to sing under his lady's window."

"Saw she him?" Lucas cried sharply.

"How should I know? She does not confide in me."

"You took care to find out!" Lucas cried, knowing he was being badgered, yet powerless to keep himself from writhing.

"I may have."

"Did she see him?" Lucas demanded again, the heavy lines of hatred and jealousy searing his face.

"No credit to you if she did not. You accomplish singularly little to harass M. de Mar in his love-making. You deserve that she should have seen him. But, as a matter of fact, she did not. She was in the chapel with madame."

"What happened?"

"François de Brie--now there is a youngster, Paul," Mayenne interrupted himself to point out, "who has not a tithe of your cleverness; but he has the advantage of being on the spot when needed. Desiring a word with mademoiselle, he betook himself to her chamber. She was not there, but Mar was warbling under the window."

"Brie?"

"Brie bestirred himself. He sent two of the guard round behind the house to cut off the retreat, while he and Latour attacked from the front."

"Mar's killed?" Lucas cried. "He's killed!"

"By no means," answered Mayenne. "He got away."

Before he could explain further,--if he meant to,--the door opened, and Mlle. de Montluc came in.

Her eyes travelled first to us, in anxiety; then with relief to Mayenne, sitting over the jewels; last, to Lucas, with startlement. She advanced without hesitation to the duke.

"I am come, monsieur, to fetch you to supper."

"Pardieu, Lorance!" Mayenne exclaimed, "you show me a different face from that of dinner-time." Indeed, so she did, for her eyes were shining with excitement, while the colour that M. Étienne had kissed into them still flushed her cheeks.

"If I do," she made quick answer, "it is because, the more I think on it, the surer I grow that my loving cousin will not break my heart."

"I want a word with you, Lorance," Mayenne said quietly.

"As many as you like, monsieur," she replied promptly. "But will you not send these creatures from the room first?"

"Do you include your cousin Paul in that term?"

"I meant these jewellers. But since you suggest it, perhaps it would be as well for Paul to go."

"You hear your orders, Paul."

"Aye, I hear and I disobey," Lucas retorted. "Mademoiselle, I take too much joy in your presence to be willing to leave it."

"Monsieur," she said to the duke, ignoring her cousin Paul with a coolness that must have maddened him, "will you not dismiss your tradespeople? Then can we talk comfortably."

"Aye," answered Mayenne, "I will. I am more gallant than Paul. If you command it, out they go, though I have not half had time to look their wares over. Here, master jeweller," he addressed M. Étienne, slipping easily into Italian, "pack up your wares and depart."

M. Étienne, bursting into rapid thanks to his Highness for his condescension in noticing the dirt of the way, set about his packing. Mayenne turned to his lovely cousin.

"Now for my word to you, mademoiselle. You wept so last night, it was impossible to discuss the subject properly. But now I rejoice to see you more tranquil. Here is the beginning and the middle and the end of the matter: your marriage is my affair, and I shall do as I like about it."

She searched his face; before his steady look her colour slowly died. M. Étienne, whether by accident or design, knocked his tray of jewels off the table. Murmuring profuse apologies, he dropped on his knees to grope for them. Neither of the men heeded him, but kept their eyes steadily on the lady.

"Mademoiselle," Mayenne deliberately went on, "I have been over-fond with you. Had I followed my own interests instead of bowing to your whims, you had been a wife these two years. I have indulged you, mademoiselle, because you were my ally Montluc's daughter, because you came to me a lonely orphan, because you were my little cousin whose baby mouth I kissed. I have let you cavil at this suitor and that, pout that one was too tall and one too short, and a third too bold and a fourth not bold enough. I have been pleased to let you cajole me. But now, mademoiselle, I am at the end of my patience."

"Monsieur," she cried, "I never meant to abuse your kindness. You let me cajole you, as you say, else I could not have done it. You treated my whims as a jest. You let me air them. But when you frowned, I have put them by. I have always done your will."

"Then do it now, mademoiselle. Be faithful to me and to your birth. Cease sighing for the enemy of our house."

"Monsieur," she said, "when you first brought him to me, he was not the enemy of our house. When he came here, day after day, season after season, he was not our enemy. When I wrote that letter, at Paul's dictation, I did not know he was our enemy. You told me that night that I was not for him. I promised you obedience. Did he come here to me and implore me to wed with him, I would send him away."

Mayenne little imagined how truly she spoke; but he could not look in her eyes and doubt her honesty.

"You are a good child, Lorance," he said. "I could wish your lover as docile."

"He will not come here again," she cried. "He knows I am not for him. He gives it up, monsieur--he takes himself out of Paris. I promise you it is over. He gives me up."

"I have not his promise for that," Mayenne said dryly; "but the next time he comes after you, he may settle with your husband."

She uttered a little gasp, but scarce of surprise--almost of relief that the blow, so long expected, had at last been dealt.

"You will marry me, monsieur?" she murmured. "To M. de Brie?"

"You are shrewd, mademoiselle. You know that it will be a good three months before François de Brie can stand up to be wed. You say to yourself that much may happen in three months. So it may. Therefore will your bridegroom be at hand to-morrow morning."

She made no rejoinder, but her eyes, wide like a hunted animal's, moved fearsomely, loathingly, to Lucas. Mayenne uttered an abrupt laugh.

"No; Paul is not the happy man. Besides bungling the St. Quentin affair, he has seen fit to make free with my name in an enterprise of his own. Therefore, Paul, you will dance at Lorance's wedding a bachelor. Mademoiselle, you marry in the morning Señor el Conde del Rondelar y Saragossa of his Majesty King Philip's court. After dinner you will depart with your husband for Spain."

Lucas sprang forward, hand on sword, face ablaze with furious protest. Mayenne, heeding him no more than if he had not been there, rose and went to Mlle de Montluc.

"Have I your obedience, cousin?"

"You know it, monsieur."

She was curtseying to him when he folded her in his arms, kissing both her cheeks.

"You are as good as you are lovely, and that says much, ma mie. We will talk a little more about this after supper. Permit me, mademoiselle."

He took her hand and led her in leisurely fashion out of the room.

It wondered me that Lucas had not killed him. He looked murder. Haply had the duke disclosed by so much as a quivering eyelid a consciousness of Lucas's rage, of danger to himself, Lucas had struck him down. But he walked straight past, clad in his composure as in armour, and Lucas made no move. I think to stab was the impulse of a moment, gone in a moment. Instantly he was glad he had not killed the Duke of Mayenne, to be cut himself into dice by the guard. After the duke was gone, Lucas stood still a long time, no less furious, but cogitating deeply.

We had gathered up our jewels and locked our box, and stood holding it between us, waiting our chance to depart. We might have gone a dozen times during the talking, for none marked us; but M. Étienne, despite my tuggings, refused to budge so long as mademoiselle was in the room. Now was he ready enough to go, but hesitated to see if Lucas would not leave first. That worthy, however, showed no intention of stirring, but remained in his pose, buried in thought, unaware of our presence. To get out, we had to walk round one end or the other of the table, passing either before or behind him. M. le Comte was for marching carelessly before his face, but I pulled so violently in the other direction that he gave way to me. I think now that had we passed in front of him, Lucas would have let us go by without a look. As it was, hearing steps at his back, he wheeled about to confront us. If the eye of love is quick, so is the eye of hate. He cried out instantly:

"Mar!"

We dropped the box, and sprang at him. But he was too quick for us. He leaped back, whipping out his sword.

"I have you now, Mar!" he cried.

M. Étienne grabbed up the heavy box in both hands to brain him. Lucas retreated. He might run through M. Étienne, but only at the risk of having his head split. After all, it suited his book as well to take us alive. Shouting for the guards, he retreated toward the door.

But I was there before him. As he ran at M. Étienne, I had dashed by, slammed the door shut, and bolted it. If we were caught, we would make a fight for it. I snatched up a stool for weapon.