She caught her breath as if in pain.
"I knew that as soon as I saw that my cousin Mayenne was not angry. When I told what I had done and he smiled at me and said I should have my gloves, why, then I thought my heart would stop beating. I saw what I had accomplished--mon dieu, I was sick with repentance of it!"
I had to tell her I had not thought it.
"No," she answered; "I had got you into this by my foolishness; I must needs try to get you out by my wits. Brie, the one who took you by the throat--there has been bad blood between him and your lord this twelvemonth; only last May M. le Comte ran him through the wrist. Had I interfered for you," she said, colouring a little, "M. de Brie would have inferred interest in the master from that in the man, and he had seen to your beating himself."
It suddenly dawned on me that this M. de Brie was the "little cheese" of guard-room gossip. And I thought that the gentleman would hardly display so much venom against M. etienne unless he were a serious obstacle to his hopes. Nor would mademoiselle be here at midnight, weeping over a serving-lad, if she cared nothing for the master. If she had not worn her heart on her sleeve before the laughing salon, mayhap she would show it to me.
"Mademoiselle," I cried, "when the billet was brought him M. etienne rose from his bed at once to come. But he was faint from fatigue and loss of blood; he could not walk across the room. But he bade me try to make mademoiselle believe his absence was no fault of his. He wrote her a month ago; he found to-day the letter was never delivered."
"Is he hurt dangerously?"
"No," I admitted reluctantly; "no, I think not. He was wounded in the right forearm, and again pinked in the shoulder; but he will recover."
"You said," she went on, the tears standing in her eyes, "that he was penniless. I have not much, but what I have is freely his."
She advanced upon me holding out her silken purse which she had taken from her bosom; but I retreated.
"No, no, mademoiselle," I cried, ashamed of my hot words; "we are not penniless--or if we are, we get on very well sans le sou. They do everything for monsieur at the Trois Lanternes, and he has only to return to the Hotel St. Quentin to get all the gold pieces he can spend.
Oh, no; we are in no want, mademoiselle. I was angry when I said it; I did not mean it. I cry mademoiselle"s pardon."
She looked at me a little hesitatingly.
"You are telling me true?"
"Why, yes, mademoiselle; if my monsieur needed money, indeed, indeed, I would not refuse it."
"Then if you cannot take it for him, you can take it for yourself. It will be strange if in all Paris you cannot find something you like as a token from me." With her own white fingers she slipped some tinkling coins into my pouch, and cut short my thanks with the little wailing cry:
"Oh, your poor, bound hands! I have my poniard in my dress. I could free them in a second. But if they knew I had been here with you they never will let you go."
"If mademoiselle is running into danger staying here, I pray her to go back to bed. M. etienne did not send me hither to bring her grief and trouble."
"Who are you?" she asked me abruptly. "You have never been here before on monsieur"s errands?"
"No, mademoiselle; I came up only yesterday from Picardie. I belong on the St. Quentin estate. My name is Felix Broux."
"Alack, you have chosen a bad time to visit Paris!"
"I came up to see life," I said, "and mordieu! I am seeing it."
"I pray G.o.d you may not see death, too," she answered soberly.
She stood looking at me helplessly.
"I am in my lord"s black books," she said slowly, as if to herself; "but I might weep Francois de Brie"s rough heart to softness. Then it is a question whether he could turn Mayenne. I wish I knew whether the duke himself or only Paul de Lorraine has planned this move to-night. That is," she added, blushing, but speaking out candidly, "whether they attack M. de Mar as the League"s enemy or as my lover."
"This M. Paul de Lorraine," said I, speaking as respectfully as I knew how, but eager to find out all I could for M. etienne--"this M. de Lorraine is mademoiselle"s lover, too?"
She shrugged her shoulders, neither a.s.senting nor denying. "We are all p.a.w.ns in the game for M. de Mayenne to push about as he chooses. For a time M. de Mar was high in his favour. Then my cousin Paul came back after a two years" disappearance, and straightway he was up and M. de Mar was down. And then Paul vanished again as suddenly as he had come, and it became the turn of M. de Brie. Now to-night Paul walked in as suddenly as he had left and at once played on me to write that unlucky letter. And what it bodes for _him_ I know not."
She spoke with amazing frankness; yet, much as she had told me, the fact of her telling it told me even more. I saw that she was as lonely in this great house as I had been at St. Quentin. She would have talked delightedly to M. le Comte"s dog.
"Mademoiselle," I said, "I would like well to tell you what has been happening to my M. etienne this last month, if you are not afraid to stay long enough to hear it."
"Oh, every one is asleep long ago; it is past two o"clock. Yes, you may tell me if you wish."
She sat down on a praying-cushion, motioning me to the other, and I began my tale. At first she listened with a little air of languor, as if the whole were of slight consequence and she really did not care at all what M. le Comte had been about these five weeks. But as I got into the affair of the Rue Coupejarrets she forgot her indifference and leaned forward with burning cheeks, hanging on my words with eager questions.
And when I told her how Lucas had evaded us in the darkness, she cried:
"Blessed Virgin! M. de Mar has enough to contend with in this Lucas, without Paul de Lorraine, and Brie, and the Duke of Mayenne himself."
I was silent, being of her opinion. Presently she asked reluctantly:
"Does your master think this Lucas a tool of M. de Mayenne"s?"
"Yes, mademoiselle. He says secretaries do not plot against dukedoms for their own pleasure."
"Asa.s.sination was not wont to be my cousin Mayenne"s way," she said with an accent of confidence that rang as false as a counterfeit coin. I saw well enough that mademoiselle did fear, at least, Mayenne"s guilt. I thought I might tell her a little more.
"M. le Comte told me that since his father"s coming to Paris M. de Mayenne made him offers to join the League, and he refused them. So then M. de Mayenne, seeing himself losing the whole house of St. Quentin, invented this."
"But it failed. Thank G.o.d, it failed! And now he will leave Paris. He will--he must!"
"He did mean to seek Navarre"s camp to-morrow," I answered; "but--"
"But what?"
"But then the letter came."
"But that makes no difference! He must go for all that. The time is over for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. He must stand on one side or the other. I am a Ligueuse born and bred, and I tell him to go to King Henry. It is his father"s side; it is his side. He cannot stay in Paris another day."
"I do not think he will go, mademoiselle."
"But he must!" she cried with vehemence. "Paris is not safe for him. If he cannot stand for his wound, he must go. I will send him a letter myself to tell him he must."
"Then he will never go."
"Felix!"
"He will not. He was going because he thought his lady flouted him; when he finds she does not--well, if he budges a step out of Paris, I do not know him. When he thought himself despised--"
"And why did I turn his suit into laughter in the salon if I did not mean that I despised him? I did it for you to tell him how I made a mock of him, that he might hate me and keep away from me."
"Oh," I said, "mademoiselle is beyond me; I cannot keep up with her."
"And you believed it! But you must needs spoil all by flaring out with impudent speech."