"Think you he meant to let you go from the first?"
"Who knows?" I said, shrugging. "Lucas is always lying. But Mayenne--sometimes he lies and sometimes not. He"s base, and then again he"s kind. You can"t make out Mayenne."
"He does not mean you shall," M. etienne returned. "Yet the key is not buried. He is made up, like all the rest of us, of good and bad."
"Monsieur," I said, "if there is any bad in the St. Quentins I, for one, do not know it."
"Ah, Felix," he cried, "you may believe that till doomsday--you will--of Monsieur."
His face clouded a little, and he fell silent. I knew that, besides his thoughts of his lady, came other thoughts of his father. He sat gravely silent. But of last night"s bitter distress he showed no trace. Last night he had not been able to take his eyes from the miserable past; but to-day he saw the future. A future not altogether flowery, perhaps, but one which, however it turned out, should not repeat the old mistakes and shames.
"Felix," he said at length, "I see nothing for it but to eat my pride."
I kept still in the happy hope that I should hear just what I longed to; he went on:
"I swore then that I would never darken his doors again; I was mad with anger; so was he. He said if I went with Gervais I went forever."
"Monsieur, if you repent your hot words, so does he."
"I must e"en give him the chance. If he do repent them, it were churlish to deny him the opportunity to tell me so. If he still maintain them, it were cowardly to shrink from hearing it. No, whatever Monsieur replies, I must go tell him I repent."
I came forward to kiss his hand, I was so pleased.
"Oh, you look very smiling over it," he cried. "Think you I like sneaking back home again like a whipped hound to his kennel?"
"But," I protested, indignant, "monsieur is not a whipped hound."
"Well, a prodigal son, as Lucas named me yesterday. It is the same thing."
"I have heard M. l"Abbe read the story of the prodigal son," I said.
"And he was a vaurien, if you like--no more monsieur"s sort than Lucas himself. But it says that when his father saw him coming a long way off, he ran out to meet him and fell on his neck."
M. etienne looked not altogether convinced.
"Well, however it turns out, it must be gone through with. It is only decent to go to Monsieur. But even at that, I think I should not go if it were not for mademoiselle."
"You will beg his aid, monsieur?"
"I will beg his advice at least. For how you and I are to carry off mademoiselle under Mayenne"s hand--well, I confess for the nonce that beats me."
"We must do it, monsieur," I cried.
"Aye, and we will! Come, Felix, you may put your knife in my dish. We must eat and be off. The meats have got cold and the wine warm, but never mind."
I did not mind, but was indeed thankful to get any dinner at all. Once resolved on the move, he was in a fever to be off; it was not long before we were in the streets, bound for the Hotel St. Quentin. He said no more of Monsieur as we walked, but plied me with questions about Mlle. de Montluc--not only as to every word she said, but as to every turn of her head and flicker of her eyelids; and he called me a dull oaf when I could not answer. But as we entered the Quartier Marais he fell silent, more Friday-faced than ever his lady looked. He had his fair allowance of pride, this M. etienne; he found his own words no palatable meal.
However, when we came within a dozen paces of the gate he dropped, as one drops a cloak, all signs of gloom or discomposure, and approached the entrance with the easy swagger of the gay young gallant who had lived there. As if returning from a morning stroll he called to the sentry:
"Hola, squinting Charlot! Open now!"
"Morbleu, M. le Comte!" the fellow exclaimed, running to draw the bolts.
"Well, this is a sight for sore eyes, anyway."
M. etienne laughed out in pleasure. It put heart into him, I could see, that his first greeting should be thus friendly.
"Vigo didn"t know what had become of you, monsieur," Chariot volunteered. "The old man wasn"t in the best of tempers last night, after Lucas got away and you gave us the slip, too. He called us all blockheads and cursed idiots. Things were lively for a time, nom d"un chien!"
"Eh bien, I am found," M. etienne returned. "In time we"ll get Lucas, too. Is Monsieur back?"
"No, M. etienne, not yet."
I think he was half sorry, half glad.
"Where"s Vigo?" he demanded.
"Somewhere about. I"ll find him for monsieur."
"No, stay at your post. I"ll find him."
He went straight across the court and in at the door he had sworn never again to darken. Humility and repentance might have brought him there, but it was the hand of mademoiselle drew him over the threshold without a falter.
Alone in the hall was my little friend Marcel, throwing dice against himself to while the time away. He sprang up at sight of us, agleam with excitement.
"Well, Marcel," my master said, "and where is M. l"ecuyer?"
"I think in the stables, monsieur."
"Bid him come to me in the small cabinet."
He turned with accustomed feet into the room at the end of the hall where Vigo kept the rolls of the guard. I, knowing it to be my duty to keep close at hand lest I be wanted, followed. Soon Marcel came flying back to say Vigo was on his way. M. etienne thanked him, and he hung about, longing to pump me, and, in my lord"s presence, not quite daring, till I took him by the shoulders and turned him out. I hate curiosity.
M. etienne stood behind the table, looking his haughtiest. He was unsure of a welcome from the contumacious Vigo; I read in his eyes a stern determination to set this insolent servant in his place.
The big man entered, saluted, came straight over to his young lord"s side, no whit hesitating, and said, as heartily as if there had never been a hard word between them:
"M. etienne, I had liefer see you stand here than the king himself."
M. etienne displayed the funniest face of bafflement. He had been prepared to lash rudeness or sullenness, to accept, de haut en bas, shamed contrition. But this easy cordiality took the wind out of his sails. He stared, and then flushed, and then laughed. And then he held out his hand, saying simply:
"Thank you, Vigo."
Vigo bent over to kiss it in cheerful ignorance of how that hand had itched to box his ears.
"What became of you last night, M. etienne?" he inquired.
"I was hunting Lucas. When does Monsieur return, Vigo?"
"He thought he might be back to-day. But he could not tell."