The Helmet of Navarre Part 74

"My Lord Mayenne, it was no outrecuidance brought me here this morning.

There is the Bastille. There is the axe. I know that my course has been offensive to you--your nephew proved me that. I know also that you do not care to meddle with me openly. At least, you have not meddled.

Whether you will change your method--but I venture to believe not. I am popular just now in Paris. I had more cheers as I came in this morning than have met your ears for many a month. You have a great name for prudence, M. de Mayenne; I believe you will not molest me."

I hardly thought my duke was making a great name for prudence. But then, as he said, he had to work in his own way. Mayenne returned, with chilling calm:

"You may find me, St. Quentin, less timid than you suppose."

"Impossible. Mayenne's courage is unquestioned. I rely not on his timidity, but on his judgment."

"You take a great deal upon yourself in supposing that I wanted your death on Tuesday and do not want it on Friday."

"The king is three days nearer the true faith than on Tuesday. His party is three days stronger. On Tuesday it would have been a blunder to kill me; on Friday it is three days worse a blunder."

"But not less a pleasure. I have had something of the kind in mind ever since your master killed my brother."

"You should profit by that murderer's experience before you take a leaf from his book, M. de Mayenne. Henry of Valois gained singularly little when he slew Guise to make you head of the League."

Mayenne started, and then laughed to show his scorn of the flattery. But I think he was, all the same, half pleased, none the less because he knew it to be flattery. He said unexpectedly:

"Your son comes honestly by his unbound tongue."

"Ah, my son! Now that you mention him, we shall discuss him a little.

You have put my son, monsieur, in the Bastille."

"No; Belin and my nephew Paul, whom you know, have put him there."

"But M. de Mayenne can get him out if he choose."

"If he choose."

Monsieur sat down again, with the air of one preparing for an amiable discussion.

"He is charged with the murder of one Pontou, a lackey. Of course he did not commit it, nor would you care if he had. His real offence is making love to your ward."

"Well, do you deny it?"

"Not the love, but the offence of it. Palpably you might do much worse than dispose of the lady to my heir."

"I might do much better than bestow my time on you if that is all you have to say."

"We have hardly opened the subject, M. de Mayenne--"

"I have no wish to carry it further."

"Monsieur, the king's ranks afford no better match than my heir."

"No maid of mine shall ever marry a Royalist."

"I swore no son of mine should ever marry a Leaguer, but I have come to see the error of my ways, as you will see yours, Mayenne. It is for you to choose where among the king's forces you will marry mademoiselle."

A vague uneasiness, a fear which he would not own a fear, crept into Mayenne's eyes. He studied the face before him, a face of gay challenge, and said, at length, not quite confidently himself:

"You speak with a confidence, St. Quentin."

"Why, to be sure."

Mayenne jumped heavily to his feet.

"What mean you?"

"I mean that mademoiselle's marrying is in my hands. Where is your ward, M. de Mayenne?"

"Mordieu! Have you found her?"

"You speak sooth."

"In your hotel--"

"No, eager kinsman. In a place whither you cannot follow her."

Mayenne looked about, as if with some instinctive idea of seeking a weapon, of summoning his soldiers.

"By G.o.d's throne, you shall tell me where!"

"With pleasure. She is at St. Denis."

Mayenne cried helplessly, as numbed under a blow:

"St. Denis! But how--"

"How came she there? On foot, every step. I suppose she never walked two streets in her life before, has she, M. de Mayenne? But she tramped to St. Denis through the dark, to knock at my door at one in the morning."

Mayenne seized Monsieur's wrist.

"She is safe, St. Quentin? She is safe?"

"As safe, monsieur, as the king's protection can make her."

"Pardieu! Is she with the king?"

"She is at my lodgings, in the care of the saddler's wife who lets them.

I left a staunch man in charge--I have no doubt of him."

"You answer for her safety?" Mayenne cried huskily; his breath coming short. He was flushed, the veins in his forehead corded.

"When she came last night, it happened that the king was there,"

Monsieur went on. "Her loveliness and her misery moved him to the heart."

"Thousand thunders of heaven! You, with your son, shall be hostages for her safe return."