Flower o' the Lily

A Romance of Old Cambray

by Baroness Orczy

London Hodder and
Stoughton and at New
York and Toronto

To
MY SON
JOHN MONTAGU ORCZY BARSTOW
2nd Lieut. 17th Lancers

I dedicate to you this story of the brave days of Old Cambray, as a token of fervent prayer that the valiant city will once again be freed from the thrall of foreign foes by your gallant comrades in arms, as she was in those far-off troublous times, which were so full of heroism and of romance.

EMMUSKA ORCZY

BEARSTED, 1918.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I [How Messire Gilles de Crohin went for an Excursion into the Land of Dreams]

II [How a Noble Prince practised the Gentle Art of Procrastination]

III [How a Clever Woman outwitted an Obstinate Man]

IV [How 'Monsieur' kept his Word]

V [What Marguerite of Navarre did when she heard the News]

VI [What Monseigneur d'Inchy and Messire Gilles de Crohin Thought of One Another]

VII [Why Madame Jacqueline was so Late in Getting to Bed]

VIII [What Became of the Lilies]

IX [How Messire Gilles was Reminded of a Dream]

X [How the Quarrel Began]

XI [And How it Ended]

XII [How Two Letters came to be Written]

XIII [How Madame Jacqueline was Gravely Puzzled]

XIV [Which Treats of the Discomfiture of M. de Landas]

XV [How M. de Landas Practised the Gentle Art of Treachery]

XVI [What News Maître Jehan brought back with Him]

XVII [How Messire de Landas' Treachery bore Fruit]

XVIII [How a Second Awakening may be more Bitter than the First]

XIX [What Jacqueline was Forced to Hear]

XX [How More than one Plot was Hatched]

XXI [How Some of these Succeeded—]

XXII [While Others Failed]

XXIII [While Traitors are at Work]

XXIV [The Defence of Cambray]

XXV [How Cambray Starved and Endured]

XXVI [What Value a Valois Prince Set upon his Word]

XXVII [And this is the End of my Story]

CHAPTER I
HOW MESSIRE GILLES DE CROHIN WENT FOR AN
EXCURSION INTO THE LAND OF DREAMS

I

When Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, received that sabre-cut upon his wrist—a cut, by the way, which had been dealt with such efficacy that it very nearly severed his left hand from his arm—he swore, so I understand, both lustily and comprehensively. I have not a faithful record of what he did say, but from what I know of Messire, I can indeed affirm that his language on the occasion was as potent as it was direct and to the point.

As for the weapon which had dealt that same forceful stroke, its triumph was short-lived. Within the next few seconds its unconscious career upon this earth was brought to a sudden and ignominious close: it was broken into three separate pieces by a blow more vigorous than even Messire Gilles himself had ever been known to deal. The hilt went flying sky-high above the heads of the nearest combatants; part of the blade was ground into the mud under the heel of Messire's stout leather boot, whilst the point itself—together with a few more inches of cold steel—was buried in the breast of that abominable spadassin who had thought to lay so stalwart an enemy low.

And, mind you, this would have been exceedingly satisfactory—the life of a rascally Spaniard in exchange for a half-severed wrist—had not some other rogue of the same ilk, who happened to be close by, succeeded at that very instant in delivering a vigorous thrust into the body of Maître Jehan le Bègue, the faithful friend and companion of the Sire de Froidmont. Whereupon Gilles, maddened with rage, slashed and charged upon the enemy with such lustihood that for an instant the valiant French troops, which indeed were sore pressed, rallied about him, and the issue of the conflict hung once more in the balance. But alas! only for a few moments. The Spaniards, more numerous and undoubtedly more highly skilled in the science of arms, soon regained the advantage, and within a few hours after that, they were driving the Netherlander and the French helter-skelter before them, having gained a signal and decisive victory.

This all occurred at Gembloux in Brabant, three and more years before the events which I am about to put on record in this veracious chronicle, and at the time when the Sire de Froidmont and his faithful henchman, Jehan—surnamed le Bègue because he stuttered and spluttered like a clucking hen—happened to be fighting in the Netherlands at the head of a troop of French Protestants who had rushed to support the brave followers of Orange against the powerful armies of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma; and I use the word 'happened' advisedly, because in these days the knights and gentlemen of France—aye, and the marshals and princes of blood, far finer noblemen and lords than was the poor Sire de Froidmont—were wont to fight now on one side, now on the other—now on the Catholic side, hand-in-hand with the Spaniards; now on the Huguenot, according if they 'happened' to be in good friendship with the Queen Mother or with the King's favourite, or with the Protestant Henry of Navarre.

On this occasion, and despite his broken wrist, Messire Gilles de Crohin was the very last to lay down his sword before the victorious Spaniard; nor is the expression 'lay down his sword' altogether the right one to use, for the Sire de Froidmont never did lay down his sword either to the Spaniards or to any other enemy, either then or on any other occasion. But it seems that, in addition to that half-severed wrist, he had several and sundry wounds about his body, and all the while that the victorious Spanish army pursued the Netherlanders even as far as the territory of the King of France, Messire Gilles lay as one dead, bleeding, half-frozen, and only sufficiently conscious to curse his own fate and the disappearance of Maître Jehan le Bègue, the most faithful servant and most expert henchman, man ever had. The trouble, indeed, was that Master Jehan was nowhere within sight.

II

Now it happened that that memorable night of February, 1578, which followed the grim fight in the valley below Gembloux, was a very dark one. Toward eight or nine o'clock of the evening, Messire Gilles woke from his state of unconsciousness by feeling rough and unfriendly hands wandering about his body. Had I not already told you that his language was apt to be more forceful than reverent, I would tell you now that he utilized his first return to actuality in sitting up suddenly and pouring forth such a volley of expletives against the miscreants who were even then trying to divest him of his boots, that, seized with superstitious fear, these human vultures fled, scattered and scared, to rally again at some distance from the spot, in order to resume their nefarious trade with less forcible interruption.

Messire Gilles listened to their scurrying footsteps for awhile; then with much difficulty, for he was sorely hurt and bruised, he struggled to his feet.

The darkness lay upon the plain and wrapped in its grim pall all the suffering, all the horror which the fiends of hatred and of fanaticism had brought in the wake of this bloody combat. Silence absolute reigned in the valley, save for an occasional sigh, a moan, a cry of pain or a curse, which rose from the sodden ground up to the sombre firmament above, as if in protest to the God of battles against so much misery and so much unnecessary pain.

Gilles—accustomed as he was to all these sounds—shook himself like a shaggy dog. Though he was comparatively a young man still, these sounds had rung in his ears ever since, as a young lad, he had learned how to fight beside his father's stirrup leathers, and seen his father fall, wounded and bruised, in much the same plight as he—Gilles himself—was at this hour. Nor had the night any terrors for him. The groans of dying men no longer stirred his senses, and only moved his heart to transient pity. What did worry Messire Gilles de Crohin, however, was the disappearance of Maître Jehan.

'So long as those hellish body-snatchers do not get hold of the poor fool!' he sighed dolefully.

Just then his ear, trained of old to catch the slightest sound which might bring a ray of hope at moments such as this, perceived above the groanings and the sighs the distant tinkle of a bell.

'Now, Gilles, my friend,' he murmured vaguely to himself, 'collect your scattered senses and find out exactly where you are.'

Dizziness seized him again, and he came down on one knee.

'Jehan, you dog!' he exclaimed instinctively, 'where the devil are you?'

To which summons Maître Jehan was evidently unable to give reply, and Messire Gilles, very sore and very much out of humour, once more contrived to struggle to his feet. The tinkling of that bell seemed more insistent now; his re-awakened consciousness worked a little more actively.

'We fought just below Gembloux,' he reflected. 'The tinkling which I hear is the monastery bell on the heights above. Now, if it will go on tinkling till I have struck the right direction and see a light in the monastery windows, I doubt not but that those worthy monks will let me lie in the kennel of one of their dogs until I can find my way to a more congenial spot.'

From which cynical reflection it can be gathered that Messire Gilles had not a vast amount of faith in the hospitality of those good Benedictines of Gembloux; which doubt on his part is scarce to be wondered at, seeing that he had been fighting on the side of the heretics.

'If only that ass Jehan were here!' he added, with a final despondent sigh.

It was no earthly use for a wounded, half-fainting man to go searching for another in the darkness on this field littered with dead and dying. Gilles, whom a vague instinct drove to the thought, had soon to give up all idea of it as hopeless. The same acute sense of hearing which had brought to his semi-consciousness the sound of the tinkling bell, also caused him to perceive through the murky blackness the presence of the human vultures taking their pickings off the dead.

Gilles shuddered with the horror of it. He felt somehow that poor old Jehan must be dead. He had seen him fall by his side in the thick of the fight. He himself was only half-alive now. The thought that he might once more fall under the talons of the body-snatchers filled him with unspeakable loathing. He gave himself a final shake in order to combat the numbness which had crept into his limbs in the wake of the cold, the faintness and the pain. Then, guided through the darkness by the welcome tintinnabulation of the monastery bell, he started to make his way across the valley.

III

Why should I speak of that weary, wretched tramp of a sorely-wounded man, in the dead of night, on sharply-rising ground, and along a track strewn with dead and dying, with broken bits of steel and torn accoutrements, on sodden ground rendered slippery with blood? Messire Gilles himself never spoke of it to any one, so why should I put it on record? It took him five hours to cover less than half a league, and he, of a truth, could not have told you how he did it even in that time. He was not really fully conscious, which was no doubt one of God's many mercies, for he did not feel the pain and the fatigue, and when he stumbled and fell, as he very often did, he picked himself up again with just that blind, insentient action which the instinct of self-preservation will at times give to man.

Whenever he recalled this terrible episode in his chequered career, it took the form in his brain of a whirl of confused memories. The tinkling of the bell ceased after a while, and the moans which rose from the field of battle were soon left behind. Anon only a group of tiny lights guided him. They came from the windows of the monastery on the heights above, still so far—so very far away. Beyond those lights and the stillness—nothing; neither pain, nor cold, nor fatigue, only a gradual sinking of sense, of physical and mental entity into a dark unknown, bottomless abyss. Then a sudden, awful stumble, more terrible than any that had gone before, a sharp agonizing blow on the head—a fall—a fall into the yawning abyss—then nothing more.

IV

Everything that happened after this belongs to the world of dreams. So, at any rate, did Messire Gilles aver. The sensation of waking up, of opening his eyes, of feeling sweet-smelling straw beneath his aching body, was, of course, a dream. The sense of well-being, of warm yet deliciously cooling water, and of clean linen upon his wounds was a dream; the murmur of voices around him was a dream.

Perhaps Messire Gilles would have thought that they were realities, because all these sensations, remember, were not altogether unknown to him. How many times he had lain wounded and insensible during his stormy life-career, he could not himself have told you. He had oft been tended by kindly Samaritans—lay or clerical; he had oft lain on fresh, clean straw and felt that sense of well-being which comes of complete rest after dire fatigue. But what he had never experienced in his life before, and what convinced him subsequently that the whole episode had only been the creation of his fevered fancy, was that wonderful vision of a white-robed saint or angel—good Messire Gilles could not have told you which, for he was not versed in such matters—which flitted ever and anon before his weary eyes. It was the sound of a voice, whispering and gentle, which was like the murmur of butterflies' wings among a wilderness of roses; it was the perfume of spring flowers with the dew fresh upon them which came to his nostrils; it was a touch like unto the velvety petals of a lily which now and again rested upon his brow, and above all it was a pair of deep blue eyes, which ever and anon met his aching ones with a glance full of gentleness and of pity.

Now, although Messire Gilles was quite willing to admit that some angels might have blue eyes, yet he had never heard it said that they had a tiny brown mole on the left cheek-bone—a mole which, small as it was, appeared like a veritable trap for a kiss, and added a quaint air of roguishness to the angelic blue eyes.

But then Gilles de Crohin, being a heretic and something of a vagabond, was not intimately acquainted with the outward appearance of angels. Moreover, that wee, tantalizing mole was far removed from the reach of his lips.

'Think you he'll recover, Messire?'

Just at that moment Gilles de Crohin could have sworn that he was conscious and awake; but that whisper, which suddenly reached his hazy perception, could not have been aught but a part of his dream. He would have liked to pinch or kick himself to see if he were in truth awake, but he was too weak and too helpless to do that; so he lay quite still, fearful lest, if he moved, the vision of the white-robed angel who had just made such tender inquiry after him, would vanish again into the gloom. Thus he heard a reply, gruff and not over tender, which, of a truth, had nothing dreamlike about it.

'Oh, he'll recover soon enough, gracious lady. These rascals have tough hides, like ploughing oxen.'

Messire Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, tried to move, for he was impelled to get up forthwith in order to chastise the malapert who had dared to call him a rascal; but it seemed as if his limbs were weighted with lead—for which fact he promptly thanked his stars, since if he had moved, those heavenly blue eyes would, mayhap, not scan his face again so anxiously.

'Think you he fought on the side of our enemies?' the dream-voice queried again; and this time there was an awed, almost trembling tone in its exquisite music.

'Aye,' answered the graft one, 'of that I have no doubt. Neither psalter nor Holy Bible have I found about his person, and the gracious lady should not have wasted her pity upon a spawn of the devil.'

'He looked so forlorn and so helpless,' said the angel-voice with gentle reproach. 'Could I let him lie there, untended in a ditch?'

'How did he get there?' retorted the real—the human—voice. 'That is what I would wish to know. The fighting took place over half a league away, and if he got his wounds on the battlefield, I, for one, do not see how he could have walked to the postern gate and deposited himself there, just in time to be in your way when you deigned to pass.'

'God guided him, Messire,' said the angel softly, 'so that you might do one of those acts of goodness and of charity for which He will surely reward you.'

Some one—a man, surely—seemed to mumble and to grumble a good deal after that, until the human voice once more emerged clearly out of the confused hubbub.

'Anyhow, gracious lady,' it said, 'you had best let yourself be escorted back to your apartment now. Messire is already fuming and fretting after you; nor is it seemly that you should remain here any longer. The fellow will do quite well, and I'll warrant be none the worse for it. He's been through this sort of thing before, my word on it. His wounds will heal...'

'Even that horrid one across his wrist?' queried the white-robed saint again. (Gilles by now was quite sure that it was a saint, for the tender touch upon his burning hand acted like a charm which soothed and healed.)

'Even that one, gracious lady,' replied the swine who had dared to speak of the Sire de Froidmont as a 'rascal' and a 'fellow.' 'Though I own 'tis a sore cut. The rascal will be marked for life, I'll warrant. I've never seen such a strange wound before. The exact shape of a cross it is—like the mark on an ass's back.... But it'll heal, gracious lady ... it'll heal ... I entreat you to leave him to me.'

Anger again rose hotly to Messire Gilles' fevered brow, whereupon everything became more and more confused. The darkness closed in around him; he could no longer see things or hear them; he was once more sinking into the dark and bottomless abyss. He opened his eyes, only to see a white-robed vision far, far above him, fading slowly but certainly into nothingness. The last thing which he remembered was just that pair of blue eyes—the most luminous eyes he had ever gazed into; eyes which looked both demure and tantalizing—oh, so maddeningly tantalizing with that adorable little mole, which was just asking for a kiss!

And the rest was silence.

V

When Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, once more recovered consciousness, it was broad daylight. The slanting rays of a genial, wintry sun had struck him full in the face, and incidentally had been infusing some warmth into his numbed body. He opened his eyes and tried to visualize his position. It took him some time. He still felt very giddy and very sick, and when he tried to move he ached in every limb. But he was not cold, and his temples did not throb with fever. As he groped about with his right hand, he encountered firstly the folds of a thick woollen cloak which had been carefully wrapped around him, and then, at a foot or so away, a pitcher and a hunk of something which to the touch appeared very like bread.

Messire Gilles paused after these preliminary investigations, closed his eyes and thought things out. He had been dreaming, of that there was no doubt, but he would be hanged, drawn and quartered if he knew whence had come the pleasing reality of a cloak, a pitcher and a hunk of bread.

It was some time after that, and when the sun was already high in the heavens, that he managed to sit up, feeling the pangs of hunger and of thirst intensified by the vicinity of that delectable bread. The pitcher contained fresh, creamy milk, which Messire Gilles drank eagerly. Somehow the coolness of it, its sweetness and its fragrance made his dream appear more vivid to him. The bread was white and tasted uncommonly good. After he had eaten and drunk he was able to look about him.

As far as he could recollect anything, he was lying very near the spot where he had fallen the day before—or the day before that, or a week, or a month ago—Messire Gilles was not at all clear on the point. But here he was, at any rate, and there were all the landmarks which he had noted at the time, when first his troop was attacked by the Spaniards. There was the clump of leafless shrubs, trampled now into the mud by thousands of scurrying feet; there was the group of broken trees, stretching gaunt arms up to the skies, and beyond them the little white house with the roof all broken in—a miserable derelict in the midst of the desolation.

He, Gilles, had been propped up against a broken tree-trunk which lay prone upon the ground. Underneath him there was a thick horse-blanket, and over him the aforementioned warm cloak. His cut wrist had been skilfully bandaged, the wounds about his body had been dressed and covered with soft linen, and, hidden away under the trunk, behind where he was lying, there was another loaf of bread, another pitcher containing water, the limbs of a roasted capon and a pat of delicious-looking cream cheese.

The Benedictine monastery which, from the distant heights had dominated the field of battle, was on Gilles' right. All around him the valley appeared silent and deserted save by the dead who still lay forgotten and abandoned even by the human vultures who had picked them clean. There were no more dying on the field of Gembloux now. Here and there a clump of rough shrubs, a broken tree with skeleton arms stretched out toward the distance, as if in mute reproach for so much misery and such wanton devastation; here and there the crumbling ruins of a wayside habitation, roofless and forlorn, from which there still rose to the wintry firmament above, a thin column of smoke. From somewhere far away came the rippling murmur of the stream and through it the dismal sound of a dog howling in this wilderness, whilst overhead a flight of rooks sent their weird croaking through the humid air.

All other sounds were stilled—the clash of arms, the call of despair or of victory, the snorting of horses, the cries of rage and of triumph had all been merged in the mist-laden horizon far away. Was it indeed yesterday, or a cycle of years ago that Gilles de Crohin had lain just here, not far from this same fallen tree-trunk, a prey to the ghoulish body-snatchers who, by their very act of hideous vandalism, had brought him back to his senses?

VI

Later on in the forenoon when, having eaten some of the capon and the cream cheese, he was able to struggle to his feet, Gilles started out to look for his friend.

Though his thoughts and impressions were still in a state of confusion, the possible plight of Maître Jehan weighed heavily on Messire's soul.

He remembered where Jehan had fallen right down in the valley, not far from the edge of the stream and close to the spot where he, Gilles, had received that terrible blow upon his wrist, and had then lashed out so furiously into the Spaniard in his wrath at seeing his faithful henchman fall.

And there indeed he found him—stark naked and half-frozen. The human vultures had robbed him even of his shirt. The search had been long and painful, for in addition to his own weary limbs, Messire Gilles had dragged the horse-blanket and the warm cloak about with him. He knew, alas! in what plight he would find Master Jehan—if indeed he were fortunate enough to find him at all; and he had also carried the pitcher half-filled with water and had thrust bread and capon into his breeches' pocket. Now that he had succeeded in his quest, he laid the blanket and the cloak over the inanimate body of his friend, moistened poor Jehan's cracked lips with the water, then he laid down beside him and fell into another swoon.

Sometime during that long and bitter day he had the satisfaction of hearing Master Jehan both groan and curse. He was able to feed him with bread and to ply him with water; and when the night came the two of them rolled themselves up in the one blanket and kept one another warm and comforted as best they could.

It is not my purpose to speak of the vicissitudes, of the ups and downs which befell Messire Gilles de Crohin and his faithful Jehan during the next few days and weeks, whilst they struggled from a state of moribundity into one of life and vigour once again, tended and aided now by one Samaritan, now by another; helped, too, by a piece of gold which Messire Gilles most unaccountably found in the inner pocket of his doublet. He swore that he had no idea he had ever left one there.

All that I desire to remind you of is that, as soon as he could again struggle to his feet, he went on another quest—one that to him was only second in importance to the search for his friend. It was a quest connected with the Benedictine monastery up yonder on a spur of the Ardennes. Messire Gilles now was quite conscious enough to remember that the monastery had been his objective when, sorely wounded and aching in every limb, he had started on a weary tramp which had culminated in an exquisite dream. To the monastery, therefore, he meant to go, for he wished to ascertain if somewhere near by there was a postern gate, beside which angels with blue eyes and perfumed hands were wont to pass, and to minister to the sick and to the weary. Messire Gilles, you perceive, trusted a great deal to intuition first and then to observation. He was quite certain in his own mind that if there was a postern gate he would come across it; and he was equally certain that in the rough grass or the scrub close by he would recognize traces of a sorely-wounded man falling headlong against a very hard wall, and the footsteps of the kindly Samaritan who, at the aforesaid angel's bidding, had carried him to shelter.

As for the angel, it was obvious of course, that such celestial beings did not walk and would not therefore leave imprints upon the sordid earth; still, even so, Messire Gilles clung to the vain hope that he would see tiny footprints somewhere, such as fairies make when they dance in a ring, and that from the very ground there would arise the perfume of spring flowers when the dew is fresh upon them in the morn.

VII

I may as well put it on record here and now that Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, after having tramped along half a league or more, came upon the purlieus of the Benedictine monastery of Gembloux, which is famed far and wide, and that after much exploration he did discover a postern gate which was let into a high stone wall. But neither in front of that gate, nor anywhere near it, were there any traces of Samaritans, of angels or of a wounded man. The ground round about that gate had at some time or another been strewn with sand and raked over very smoothly and evenly, after which the humid air and the rain had had their way with it.

Messire Gilles uttered a comprehensive oath. Then he turned on his heel and went his way.

CHAPTER II
HOW A NOBLE PRINCE PRACTISED THE GENTLE
ART OF PROCRASTINATION

I

Now, all that which I have related occurred during the month of February in the year 1578—three years and more ago.

After which I come to my story.

We will leave the subject of Messire Gilles' dream, an it please you; we will even leave that gallant if somewhat out-at-elbows gentleman in the tap-room of the only hostelry of which the little town of La Fère could boast, where he must needs wait for the good pleasure of no less a personage than François Hercule, Duke of Alençon and of Anjou—usually styled 'Monsieur'—who was own brother to His Very Christian Majesty, King Henry III of France, and whom Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, was serving for the nonce.

M. le Duc d'Alençon and d'Anjou was closeted upstairs with the Queen of Navarre, that faithful and adoring sister who had already committed many follies for his sake, and who was ready to commit as many more. What she saw to adore and worship in this degenerate and indolent scion of the princely house of Valois, in this foppish profligate devoid alike of morals and of valour, no historian has ever been able to fathom. That he had some hidden qualities that were as noble as they have remained unknown to tradition, we must assume from the very fact that Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, one of the most brilliant women of that or any epoch and the wife of one of the most dazzling and fascinating men of his day, lavished the resources of her intellect and of her sisterly love upon that graceless coxcomb.

Picture her now—that beautiful, clever woman—full of energy, of vitality and of burning ambition, pacing the narrow room in the humble hostelry of a second-rate city, up and down like some caged and exquisite wild animal, the while that same fondly-adored brother sat there silent and surly, his long legs, encased in breeches of delicate green satin, stretched out before him, his not unattractive face, framed in by an over-elaborate ruffle, bent in moody contemplation of his velvet shoes, the while his perfumed and slender hands fidgeted uneasily with the folds of his mantle or with the slashings of his doublet.

On the table before him lay a letter, all crumpled and partly torn, which Marguerite had just thrown down in an access of angry impatience.

'By all the saints, François,' she said tartly, 'you would provoke an angel into exasperation. In Heaven's name, tell me what you mean to do.'

Monsieur did not reply immediately. He stretched out his legs still further before him; he shook his mantle into place; he smoothed down the creases of his satin breeches; then he contemplated his highly polished nails. Marguerite of Navarre, with flaming cheeks and blazing eyes, stood by, looking down on him with ever-growing irritability not unmixed with contempt.

'François!' she exclaimed once more, evidently at the end of her patience.

'Gently, my dear Margot; gently!' said Monsieur, with the peevishness of a spoilt child. 'Holy Virgin, how you do fume! Believe me, choler is bad for the stomach and worse for the complexion. And, after all, where is the hurry? One must have time to think.'

'Think! Think!' she retorted. ''Tis two days since M. d'Inchy's letter came and he sends anon for his answer.'

'Which means,' he argued complacently, 'that there is no cause to come to a decision for at least half an hour.'

An angry exclamation broke from Marguerite's full lips.

'My dear Margot,' said the Duke fretfully, 'marriage is a very serious thing, and——'

He paused, frowning, for his sister had burst into ironical laughter. 'I am well aware,' he resumed dryly, 'that you, my dear, look upon it as a cause for levity, and that poor Navarre, your husband——'

'I pray you, dear brother,' she broke in coldly, 'do not let the pot call the kettle black. 'Tis neither in good taste nor yet opportune. M. d'Inchy will send for his answer anon. You must make up your mind now, whether you mean to accept his proposal or not.'

Again Monsieur remained silent for awhile. Procrastination was as the breath of his body to him. Even now he drew the letter—every word of which he probably knew already by heart—towards him and fell to re-reading it for the twentieth time.

II

Marguerite of Navarre, biting her lips and almost crying with vexation, went up to the deep window embrasure and, throwing open the casement, she rested her elbow on the sill and leaned her cheek against her hand.

The open courtyard of the hostelry was at her feet, and beyond it the market-place of the sleepy little town with its quaint, narrow houses and tall crow's foot gables and curious signs, rudely painted, swinging on iron brackets in the breeze. It was early afternoon of a mild day in February, and in the courtyard of the hostelry there was the usual bustle attendant upon the presence of a high and mighty personage and of his numerous suite.

Men-at-arms passed to and fro; burghers from the tiny city, in dark cloth clothes and sombre caps, came to pay their respects; peasants from the country-side brought produce for sale; serving-men in drab linen and maids in gaily-coloured kerchiefs flitted in and out of the hostelry and across the yard with trays of refreshments for the retinue of M. le Duc d'Anjou and of Madame la Reynede Navarre, own brother and sister of the King of France. Indeed, it was not often that so great a prince and so exalted a lady had graced La Fère with their presence, and the hostelry had been hard put to it to do honour to two such noble guests. Mine host and his wife and buxom daughters were already wellnigh sick with worry, for though Madame la Reyne de Navarre and M. le Duc, her brother, were very exacting and their gentlemen both hungry and thirsty, not one among these, from Monsieur downwards, cared to pay for what he had. And while the little town seethed with soldiery and with loud-voiced gentlemen, the unfortunate burghers who housed them and the poor merchants and peasants who had to feed them, almost sighed for the Spanish garrisons who, at any rate, were always well-paid and paying.

Down below in the courtyard there was constant jingling of spurs and rattle of sabres, loud language and ribald laughter; but when the casement flew open and the Queen of Navarre's face appeared at the window, the latter, at any rate, was at once suppressed. In the shade and across a narrow wooden bench on which they sat astride, a couple of gentlemen-at-arms were throwing dice, surrounded by a mixed and gaping crowd—soldiers, servants, maids and peasants—who exchanged pleasantries while watching the game.

Marguerite looked down on them for a moment or two, and an impatient frown appeared between her brows. She did not like the look of her brother's 'gentlemen,' for they were of a truth very much out-at-elbows, free of speech and curt of manner. The fact that they were never paid and often left in the lurch, if not actually sold to their enemies by Monsieur, accounted, no doubt, for all the laxity, and Marguerite swore to herself even then, that if ever her favourite brother reached the ambitious goal for which she was scheming on his behalf, one of his first acts of sovereignty should be to dismiss such down-at-heel, out-at-elbows swashbucklers as were, for instance, Messire Gilles de Crohin and many others. After which vow Marguerite de Navarre once more turned to her brother, trying to assume self-control and calmness which she was far from feeling. He appeared still absorbed in the contemplation of the letter, and as he looked up lazily and encountered her blazing eyes, he yawned ostentatiously.

'François!' she burst out angrily.

'Well, my dear?' he retorted.

'M. le Baron d'Inchy,' she continued more quietly, 'hath taken possession of Cambray and the Cambrésis and driven the pro-Spanish Archbishop into exile. He offers to deliver up the Cambrésis and to open the gates of Cambray to you immediately, whilst M. le Comte de Lalain will hand you over, equally readily, the provinces of Hainault, of Flanders and of Artois.'

'I know all that,' he muttered.

'You might be Duke of Hainault and Artois,' she went on with passionate enthusiasm. 'You might found a new kingdom of the Netherlands, with yourself as its first sovereign lord—and you hesitate!!! Holy Joseph! Holy Legions of Angels!' she added, with a bitter sigh of pent-up exasperation. 'What have I done that I should be plagued with such a nincompoop for a brother?'

François d'Alençon and d'Anjou laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

'The provinces are worth considering,' he said coolly. 'Cambray is attractive, and I would not object to the Duchies of Artois and Hainault, or even to a Kingdom of the Netherlands. But...!'

'Well?' she broke in testily. 'What is the "but"?'

He sighed and made a sour grimace. 'There is a bitter pill to swallow with all that sugar,' he replied. 'You appear to be forgetting that, my very impetuous sister!'

It was Marguerite's turn to shrug her pretty shoulders.

'Bah!' she said contemptuously. 'A wife! You call that a bitter pill! Jacqueline de——what is her name?'

Monsieur referred to the letter.

'Jacqueline de Broyart,' he said dryly.

'Well! Jacqueline de Broyart,' she continued, more composedly, 'is said to be attractive. M. d'Inchy says so.'

'A merchant must praise the goods which he offers for sale,' remarked Monsieur.

'And even if she be ill-favoured,' retorted Marguerite dryly, 'she brings the richest duchies in the Netherlands and the influence of her name and family as her marriage portion. Surely a kingdom is worth a wife.'

'Sometimes.'

'In this case, François,' urged Marguerite impatiently. Then, with one of those sudden changes of mood which were one of her main charms, she added with a kind of gentle and solemn earnestness: 'You in your turn appear to forget, my exasperating brother, that 'tis I who have worked for you, just as I always have done heretofore, I who made friends for you with these loutish, ill-mannered Flemings, and who prepared the way which has led to such a brilliant goal. Whilst you wasted your substance in riotous living in our beloved Paris, I was half-killing myself with ennui in this abominable Flemish climate, I was drinking the poisonous waters of Spa so as to remain in touch with the governors of all these disaffected provinces and insidiously turning their minds towards looking for a prince of the house of France to be their deliverer and their ruler. Now my labours are bearing fruit. Don John of Austria is more hated throughout the Netherlands than he was before my coming hither, the provinces are more wearied of the Spanish yoke—they are more ready to accept a foreign ruler, even though he be a Catholic to boot. You have now but to stretch a hand, and all the golden harvest prepared by me will fall into it without another effort on your part save that of a prompt decision. So let me tell you, once and for all, Monsieur my brother, that if you refuse that golden harvest now, if you do not accept the Baron d'Inchy's offer, never as long as I live will I raise another finger to help you or to advance your welfare. And this I hereby do swear most solemnly and pray to the Virgin to register my vow!'

The Duke, unaccustomed to his charming sister's earnestness, had listened to her without departing from his sullen mood. When she had finished her tirade he shrugged his shoulders and yawned.

'How you do talk, my dear Margot!' he said coolly. 'To hear you one would imagine that I was an incorrigible rogue, an immoral profligate and a do-nothing.'

'Well, what else are you?' she retorted.

'A much maligned, overworked prince.'

She laughed, and despite her choler a look of genuine affection crept into her eyes as she met the reproachful glance of the brother whom she loved so dearly, and whose faults she was always ready to condone.

'By the Mass!' quoth he. 'You talk of having worked and slaved for me—and so you have, I'll own—but, far from leading a dissipated life in Paris the while, I toiled and slaved, intrigued and conspired, too—aye, and risked my life a hundred times so that I might fall in with your schemes.'

'Oh!' she broke in with a good-natured laugh. 'Let us be just, Monsieur my brother. You allowed others to toil and slave and intrigue and conspire, and to risk their life in your cause——'

''Tis you are unjust, Margot,' he retorted hotly. 'Why, think you then, that I was arrested by order of my brother the King, and thrown into the dungeon of Vincennes——?'

'You would not have been arrested, my dear,' said Marguerite dryly, 'if you had not chosen to be arrested.'

'The King, our brother, does not approve of your schemes, my Margot.'

'He is the dog in the manger,' she replied. 'Though Flanders and Hainault and the Netherlands are not for him, he does not wish to see you a more powerful prince than he.'

'So, you see——'

'But you knew,' she broke in quickly, 'you knew four and twenty hours before the order of your arrest was issued that the King had already decided on signing it. You had ample time for leaving Paris and joining me at Spa. Six precious months would not have been wasted——'

'Well! I escaped out of Vincennes as soon as I could.'

'Yes!' she retorted, once more fuming and raging, and once more pacing up and down the room like a fretful animal in a cage. 'Procrastination! Time wasted! Shelving of important decisions!...'

He pointed leisurely to the letter.

'There's no time lost,' he said.

'Time wasted is always lost,' she argued. 'The tone of M. le Baron d'Inchy is more peremptory this time than it was six months ago. There is a "take it or leave it" air about this letter. The provinces are waxing impatient. The Prince of Orange is rapidly becoming the idol of the Netherlands. What you reject he will no doubt accept. He is a man—a man of action, not a laggard——'

'But I am not rejecting anything!' exclaimed Monsieur irritably.

'Then, for God's sake, François——!'

Marguerite de Navarre paused, standing for a few seconds quite still, her whole attitude one of rigid expectancy. The next moment she had run back to the window. But now she leaned far out of the casement, heedless if the men below saw the Queen of Navarre and smiled over her eagerness. Her keen ears had caught the sound of an approaching troop of men; the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the hard road was already drawing perceptibly nearer.

'Messire Gilles!' she called out impatiently to one of the dice-throwers, who was continuing his game unperturbed.

In a moment the man was on his feet. He looked up and saw the Queen's pretty face framed in by the casement-window; and a pretty woman was the only thing on God's earth which commanded Gilles de Crohin's entire respect. Immediately he stood at attention, silhouetted against the sunlit market-place beyond—a tall, martial figure, with face weather-beaten and forehead scarred, the record of a hundred fights depicted in every line of the sinewy limbs, the powerful shoulders, the look of self-assurance in the deep-set eyes and the strong, square jaw.

III

There was nothing very handsome about Messire Gilles de Crohin. That portrait of him by Rembrandt—a mere sketch—done some years later, suggests a ruggedness of exterior which might have been even repulsive at times, when passion or choler distorted the irregular features. Only the eyes, grey and profound, and the full lips, ever ready to smile, may have been attractive. In a vague way he resembled the royal master whom he was serving now. The features were not unlike those of François, Duc d'Alençon et d'Anjou, but cast in a rougher, more powerful mould and fashioned of stouter clay. The resemblance is perhaps more striking in the picture than it could have been in the original, for the Duke's skin was almost as smooth as a woman's, his hair and sparse, pointed beard were always exquisitely brushed and oiled; whereas Gilles' skin was that of a man who has spent more nights in the open than in a downy bed, and his moustache—he did not wear the fashionable beard—was wont to bristle, each hair standing aloof from its neighbour, whenever Messire Gilles bridled with amusement or with rage.

Then, again, Gilles looked older than the Duke, even though he was, I think, the younger of the two by several years; but we may take it that neither his cradle nor his youth had been watched over with such tender care as those of the scion of the house of France, and though dissipation and a surfeit of pleasure had drawn many lines on the placid face of the one man, hard fighting and hard living had left deeper imprints still on that of the other. Still, the resemblance was there, and though Gilles' limbs indicated elasticity and power, whereas those of the Prince of Valois were more slender and loosely knit, the two men were much of a height and build, sufficiently so, at any rate, to cause several chroniclers—notably the Queen of Navarre herself—to aver that Gilles de Crohin's personality ofttimes shielded that of Monsieur, Duke of Anjou and of Alençon, and that Messire Gilles was ofttimes requisitioned to impersonate the master whom he served and resembled, especially when any danger at the hand of an outraged husband or father, or of a hired assassin lurked for the profligate prince behind a hedge or in the angle of a dark street. Nor was that resemblance to be altogether wondered at, seeing that the de Froidmonts claimed direct descent from the house of Valois and still quartered the Flower o' the Lily on ground azure upon their escutcheon, with the proud device: 'Roy ne suys, ne Duc, ne Prince, ne Comte; je suys Sire de Froide Monte.'[[1]] They had indeed played at one time an important part in the destinies of the princely house, until fickle Fortune took so resolutely to turning her back upon the last descendants of the noble race.

[[1]] 'Am neither King, nor Duke, nor Prince, nor Count; am Sire de Froide Monte.'

Marguerite of Navarre was too thoroughly a woman not to appreciate the appearance of one who was so thoroughly a man. Gilles de Crohin may have been out-at-elbows, but even the rough leather jerkin which he wore and the faded kerseymere of his doublet could not altogether mar a curious air of breeding and of power which was not in accord with penury and a position of oft humiliating dependence. So, despite her impatience, she gazed on Gilles for a moment or two with quick satisfaction ere she said:

''Tis Monseigneur d'Inchy's messenger we hear, is it not, Messire?'

'I doubt not, your Majesty,' replied Gilles.

'Then I pray you,' she added, 'conduct him to my brother's presence directly he arrives.'

And even whilst the sound of approaching horsemen drew nearer and nearer still, and anon a great clatter upon the rough paving stones of the courtyard announced their arrival, Marguerite turned back into the room. She ran to her brother's chair and knelt down beside him. She put fond arms round his shoulders and forced him to look into her tear-filled eyes.

'François,' she pleaded, with the tenderness of a doting mother. 'Mon petit François! For my sake, if not for yours! You don't know how I have toiled and worked so that this should come to pass. I want you to be great and mighty and influential. I hate your being in the humiliating position of a younger brother beside Henri, who is so arrogant and dictatorial with us all. François, dear, I have worked for you because I love you. Let me have my reward!'

Monsieur sighed like the spoilt child he really was, and made his habitual sour grimace.

'You are too good to me, Margot,' he said somewhat churlishly. 'I would you had left the matter alone. Our brother Henri cannot live for ever, and his good wife has apparently no intention of presenting him with a son.'

'Our brother Henri,' she insisted, 'can live on until you are too old to enjoy the reversion of the throne of France, and Louise de Lorraine is still young—who knows? The Duchies of Artois and Hainault and the Sovereignty of the Netherlands to-day are worth more than the vague perspective of the throne of France mayhap ten or a dozen years hence——'

'And my marriage with Elizabeth of England?' he protested.

'Elizabeth of England will never marry you, François,' she replied earnestly. 'She is too fanatical a Protestant ever to look with favour on a Catholic prince. She will keep you dangling round her skirts and fool you to the top of her bent, but Milor of Leycester will see to it that you do not wed the Queen of England.'

'If I marry this Flemish wench I shall be burning my boats——'

'What matter?' she retorted hotly, 'if you enter so glorious a harbour?'

There was nothing in the world that suited Monsieur's temperament better than lengthy discussions over a decision, which could thereby be conveniently put off. Even now he would have talked and argued and worn his sister's patience down to breaking point if suddenly the corridor outside had not resounded with martial footsteps and the jingling of swords and spurs.

'François!' pleaded Marguerite for the last time.

And the Duke, still irresolute, still longing to procrastinate, gave a final sigh of sullen resignation.

'Very well!' he said. 'Since you wish it——'

'I do,' she replied solemnly. 'I do wish it most earnestly, most sincerely. You will accept, François?'

'Yes.'

'You promise?'

Again he hesitated. Then, as the footsteps halted outside the door and Marguerite almost squeezed the breath out of his body with the pressure of her young strong arms, he said reluctantly: 'I promise!' Then, immediately—for fear he should be held strictly to his word—he added quickly: 'On one condition.'

'What is that?' she asked.

'That I am not asked to plight my troth to the wench till after I have seen her; for I herewith do swear most solemnly that I would repudiate her at the eleventh hour—aye, at the very foot of the altar steps, if any engagement is entered into in my name to which I have not willingly subscribed.'

This time he spoke so solemnly and with such unwonted decision that Marguerite thought it best to give way. At the back of her over-quick mind she knew that by hook or by crook she would presently devise a plan which would reconcile his wishes to her own.

'Very well,' she said after an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation. 'It shall be as you say.'

And despite the half-hearted promise given by the arch-procrastinator, there was a look of triumph and of joy on Queen Marguerite's piquant features now. She rose to her feet and hastily dried her tears.

There was a rap at the door. Marguerite seated herself on a cushioned chair opposite her brother and called out serenely: 'Enter!'

CHAPTER III
HOW A CLEVER WOMAN OUTWITTED AN OBSTINATE MAN

I

The door was thrown open and Messire Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, stood at attention upon the threshold.

'Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy's messenger, is it not, Messire?' asked Marguerite of Navarre quickly, even before Gilles had time to make the formal announcement.

'Messire de Montigny has arrived, your Majesty,' he replied. 'He bears credentials from Monseigneur the governor of Cambray.'

'Messire de Montigny?' she said, with a frown of puzzlement. 'In person?'

'Yes, your Majesty.'

'Has he come with a retinue, then?' broke in Monsieur with his wonted peevishness. 'There is no room in the city. Already I have scarce room for my men.'

'Messire de Montigny is alone, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles de Crohin, 'save for an equerry. He proposes to return to Cambray this night.'

Monsieur uttered a fretful exclamation, but already Marguerite had interposed.

'We cannot,' she said curtly, 'keep Messire de Montigny on the doorstep, my dear brother. And you must remember that I have your promise.'

'Holy Virgin!' was Monsieur's only comment on this timeful reminder. 'Was ever man so plagued before by a woman who was not even his mistress, Gilles!' he added peremptorily.

'François!' admonished his sister sternly.

'Mon Dieu, my dear!' he retorted. 'May I not speak to Gilles now? Gilles, who is my best friend——'

'Messire de Montigny is in the corridor,' she broke in firmly.

'I know! I know! Curse him! I only wished to order Gilles—my best friend, Gilles—not to leave me in the lurch; not to abandon me all alone between an impetuous sister and a mulish Fleming.'

'François!' she exclaimed. 'What folly!'

'Gilles must remain in the room,' he declared, 'during the interview.'

'Impossible!' she affirmed hotly. 'Messire de Montigny might not like it.'

'Then I'll not see him——'

Marguerite de Navarre was on the verge of tears. Vexation, impatience, choler, were wellnigh choking her.

'Very well!' she said at last, with a sigh of infinite weariness. 'I pray you, Messire,' she added, turning to Gilles, 'introduce Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy's messenger and remain in the room, as Monsieur bids you, during the interview.'

II

Messire de Montigny was a short, stout, determined-looking gentleman who, very obviously, despite his outward show of deference to a scion of the house of France, had received his instructions as to the manner in which he was to deal with that procrastinating and indolent prince. He had clearly come here resolved to be firm and not to yield an inch in his demands, nor to allow any further delay in the negotiations wherewith he had been entrusted.

But with François, Duc d'Alençon et d'Anjou, a promise given was not of necessity a promise kept. No one knew that better than the sister who adored him, and whose quasi-maternal love for him was not wholly free from contempt. Therefore, all the while that Messire de Montigny was paying his devoirs to Monsieur and to herself, all the while that the preliminary flummery, the bowings and the scrapings, the grandiloquent phrases and meaningless compliments went on between the two men, Marguerite of Navarre was watching her brother, noting with a sinking of the heart every sign of peevish fretfulness upon that weak and good-looking face, and of that eternal desire to put decisions off, which she knew in this case would mean the ruin of all her ambitious plans for him. At times, her luminous dark eyes would exchange a glance of understanding or of appeal with Gilles de Crohin who, silent and apparently disinterested, stood in a corner of the room quietly watching the comedy which was being enacted before him. Marguerite de Navarre, whose sense of the ridiculous was one of her keenest attributes, could well appreciate how a man of Gilles' caustic humour would be amused at this double-edged duel of temperaments. She could see how, at Monsieur's perpetual parryings, Gilles' moustache would bristle and his deep-set eyes twinkle with merriment; and though she frowned on him for this impertinence, she could not altogether blame him for it. There certainly was an element of farce in the proceedings.

'I have come for Monseigneur's answer,' Messire de Montigny had declared with uncompromising energy. 'My brother de Lalain and M. d'Inchy cannot, and will not, wait!'

'You Flemings are always in such a devil of a hurry!' Monsieur had said, with an attempt at jocularity.

'We have endured tyranny for close upon a century, Monseigneur,' retorted de Montigny curtly. 'We have been long-suffering; we can endure no longer.'

'But, Holy Virgin, Messire!' exclaimed the Duke fretfully, 'ye cannot expect a man to risk his entire future in the turn of a hand.'

'Monsieur le Baron d'Inchy had the honour to send a letter to Monseigneur two months ago,' rejoined the other. 'The Provinces have fought the whole might of Spain and of Don Juan of Austria on their own initiative and on their own resources, for the recovery of their ancient civil and religious liberties. But they have fought unaided quite long enough. We must have help and we must have a leader. The Prince of Orange has his following in Holland. We in the Cambrésis, in Hainault and Artois and Flanders want a sovereign of our own—a sovereign who has power and the might of a great kingdom and of powerful alliances behind him. 'Our choice has fallen on Monsieur, Duc d'Alençon and d'Anjou, own brother to the King of France. Will he deign to accept the sovereignty of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and give them the happiness and the freedom which they seek?'

With a certain rough dignity Messire de Montigny put one knee to the ground and swept the floor with his plumed hat ere he pressed his hand against his heart in token of loyalty and obeisance. Marguerite de Navarre's beautiful face became irradiated with a great joy. Her fine nostrils quivered with excitement and she threw a look of triumph on Messire Gilles, who had, in his appearance just then, the solemnity of a Puck—and one of encouragement on the beloved brother. But Monsieur looked as sullen and as gloomy as he had done before. If there was a thing on this earth which he hated more than any other, it was a plain question which required a plain answer. He was furious with Messire de Montigny for having asked a plain question, furious with his sister for looking triumphant, and furious with Gilles for seeming so amused.

So he took refuge in moody silence, and Messire de Montigny, with a flush of anger on his round face, quickly rose to his feet. Even to one less keenly observant than was the clever Queen of Navarre, it would have been obvious that all these obsequious marks of deference, these genuflexions and soft words were highly unpalatable to the envoy of Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy, governor of the Cambrésis. They were proud folk, these Flemings—nobles, burgesses and workers alike—and it had only been after very mature deliberation and driven by stern necessity that they had decided to call in a stranger to aid them in their distress. The tyranny of the Spaniards had weighed heavily upon them. One by one they saw their ancient privileges wrested from them, whilst their liberty to worship in accordance with the dictates of their conscience was filched from them under unspeakable horrors and tyrannies. They had fought on doggedly, often hopelessly, loth to call in outside aid for fear of exchanging one oppressor for another, and a while ago they had a goodly number of victories to their credit. Orange had freed many provinces, and several cities had driven the Spanish garrisons from out their gates. M. le Baron d'Inchy had seized Cambray and the Cambrésis and driven the Catholic Archbishop into exile. Flemish governors were established in Hainault, Brabant, in Artois and in Flanders; the Dutch were the masters in Holland, Zeeland and Frise—a splendid achievement! For, remember that these burghers and their untrained bands were pitted against the finest military organization of the epoch.

But lately, the Spaniards, alarmed at these reverses, had sent fresh troops into the Netherlands, and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, their most distinguished soldier, had obtained signal victories over the war-wearied Dutch and Flemish troops. Since Orange had suffered a signal defeat at Gembloux three years ago several cities had fallen back once more under the Spanish yoke. It was time to call in foreign aid. On the one hand, Elizabeth of England had given assurances of money and of troops; on the other, Marguerite of Navarre had made vague promises in the name of the Duc d'Alençon. A Catholic prince was a bitter pill to swallow for these staunch Protestants, but when d'Inchy offered Monsieur the sovereignty of the Netherlands, with immediate possession of the Cambrésis, of Hainault, Artois and Flanders, he had first of all insisted—respectfully but firmly—on certain guarantees: the guarantee which to Monsieur's fastidious taste was like a bitter pill in the sugary offer—a Flemish wife and a Protestant to boot—one who would hold the new sovereign lord true to his promise to uphold and protect the reformed faith.

III

"I hate being forced into a marriage!" Monsieur repeated for the third time, as he cast lowering looks upon the bowed head of M. de Montigny.

'There is no question of force, Monseigneur,' rejoined the latter firmly. 'M. d'Inchy, speaking in the name of our provinces, had the honour to propose a bargain, which Monseigneur will accept or reject as he thinks fit.'

'But this Jacqueline—er—Jacqueline——?' queried Monsieur disdainfully.

'Jacqueline de Broyart, Dame de Morchipont, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramose, d'Espienne et de Wargny,' broke in Messire de Montigny with stern pride, "is as beautiful and pure as she is rich and noble. She is worthy to be the consort of a King.'

'But I have never seen the lady!' argued Monsieur irritably.

'Jacqueline de Broyart,' retorted de Montigny curtly, 'cannot be trotted out for Monseigneur's inspection like a filly who is put up for sale!'

'Who talks of trotting her out?' said Monsieur. 'Mon Dieu, man! Can I not even see my future wife? In matters of beauty tastes differ, and——'

'You will admit, Messire,' here interposed Marguerite quickly, seeing that at Monsieur's tone of thinly-veiled contempt frowns of anger, dark as thunder-clouds, were gathering on Messire de Montigny's brow. 'You will admit that it is only just that my brother should see the lady ere he finally decides.'

'Jacqueline, Madame la Reyne,' riposted de Montigny gruffly, 'is wooed by every rich and puissant seigneur in four kingdoms. Princes of the blood in Germany and Austria and Spain, noble lords of England and of France are at her feet. She is a mere child—scarce nineteen years of age—but she has a woman's heart and a woman's pride. She is my cousin's child; d'Inchy and my brother are her guardians. They would not allow an affront to be put upon her.'

'An affront, Messire?' queried Marguerite coldly. 'Who spoke of an affront to the Duc d'Alençon's future wife?'

'If Monseigneur sees the child,' argued de Montigny stiffly, 'and then turns against her, she is quite old enough to look upon that fact as an affront.'

'The devil take you for a stiff-necked Fleming, Messire!' quoth the Duke angrily.

'Then Monseigneur refuses?' was de Montigny's calm retort, even though his rough voice was shaking with suppressed choler.

'No, no, Messire!' once more broke in Marguerite hastily. 'Did Monseigneur say that he refused?'

'Monseigneur seems disinclined to accept,' rejoined de Montigny. 'And so much hesitation is a slur cast upon the honour of a noble Flemish lady who is my kinswoman.'

'Believe me, Messire,' said Marguerite gently and with unerring tact, determined to conciliate at all costs, 'that we of the house of Valois hold all honour in high esteem. Meseems that you and my brother do but misunderstand one another. Will you allow a woman's wit to bridge over the difficulty?'

'If you please, Madame,' replied de Montigny stiffly.

IV

Marguerite de Navarre gave a short sigh of satisfaction. One look of warning only did she cast on her brother, and with an almost imperceptible movement of finger to lip she enjoined him to remain silent and to leave the matter in her hands. François d'Anjou shrugged his shoulders and smothered a yawn. The whole matter was eminently distasteful to him, and gladly would he have thrown up the promised throne and be rid of all these serious questions which bored him to tears.

De Montigny stood erect and stern; his attitude remained deferential, but also unyielding. He was deeply offended in the person of the child who in his sight stood for all that was most noble and most desirable in the Netherlands. The indifference with which the offer of such a brilliant alliance had been received by this Prince of France had angered the stiff-necked Fleming beyond measure. But Marguerite, feeling the difficulties around her, was now on her mettle. None knew better than she how to make a man unbend—even if he be a bitter enemy, which de Montigny certainly was not.

'Messire,' she said with that gentle dignity which became her so well, 'I pray you be not angered with my brother. He has had much to worry him of late. Indeed, indeed,' she continued earnestly, 'his heart is entirely given over to your magnificent country and he is proud and honoured to have been chosen by you as your future Sovereign Lord.'

But to this conciliating harangue de Montigny made no reply, and Marguerite resumed, after a slight pause.

'Perhaps you do not know, Messire, that the King of France, our brother, hath not such goodwill towards his kindred as they would wish, and that, fearing that Monsieur would be overproud of your offer and would nurture further ambitious plans, he did order Monsieur's arrest, thereby causing us much delay.'

'Yes, your Majesty,' replied de Montigny curtly, 'I knew all that. But the offer hath been made to Monseigneur now—and I still await his answer.'

'His answer is yes, Messire!' said Marguerite firmly.

'A grudging "yes," forsooth,' quoth de Montigny with an impatient shrug of the shoulders.

'An eager "yes," an you'll believe me,' retorted Marguerite. 'All that he asks is to see the noble Dame Jacqueline de Broyart and to pay her his devoirs ere he is formally affianced to her.'

'Hang it all!' quoth Monsieur resolutely. 'You cannot expect a man to wed a woman whom he has never seen!'

'A man in Monseigneur's position,' retorted de Montigny gruffly, 'must do many things which humbler folk can afford to leave undone, and I have explained my objections to that plan; so that if Madame la Reyne hath none other to offer——'

'Nay! but I entreat you to listen to me, Messire,' urged Marguerite with exemplary patience. 'And you, François,' she added, turning to her brother, who at de Montigny's last words had muttered an angry oath under his breath, 'I beg that you will let me unfold my plan ere you combat it. Messire,' she continued earnestly, once more addressing the Flemish lord, 'let me assure you again that I both understand and appreciate your objection and, on my soul I never dreamed of suggesting that so noble and great a lady as Madame Jacqueline de Broyart should, as you justly remark, be trotted out for the inspection of Monseigneur, like a filly which is put up for sale.'

'Well, then——?' retorted de Montigny.

'Tell me, Messire,' she interposed irrelevantly, 'how old exactly is Madame Jacqueline?'

'Not yet twenty,' he replied. 'But I do not see——'

'You will in a moment,' quoth she with a smile. 'Twenty, you said?'

'Not quite.'

'And beautiful, of course?'

'Ask the men of Hainault and of Flanders,' was his proud reply. 'They will tell you how beautiful she is.'

'Twenty—not quite—and beautiful,' said Marguerite of Navarre slowly. 'And of a romantic turn of mind, shall we say, as young girls so often are?'

'Oh, as to that,' replied de Montigny with a puzzled frown, 'I dare swear that she hath a romantic turn of mind. She certainly would not allow herself to be offered up for sale like a bundle of goods. Therefore——'

'Easy, easy, Messire!' urged the Queen gently. 'I entreat you to reply to my questions without choler. Are we not both striving to find a way out of an impasse which might wreck the very welfare of your country and Monseigneur d'Inchy's most cherished scheme?'

De Montigny sighed impatiently. 'You are right, Madame la Reyne,' he said grudgingly. 'I pray you continue. I'll not lose my temper again. My word on it.'

'You were about to assure me, Messire,' resumed Marguerite gently, 'that Madame Jacqueline is as romantic as she is beautiful.'

'Jacqueline has been spoilt and adulated,' replied de Montigny, determined to speak calmly. 'Poets have dedicated their verses to her. Musicians have sung her praises——'

'And love-sick swains have died of love for her, or sighed impassioned tirades beneath her casement-window,' concluded Marguerite, with a smile which was so winning that, despite himself, after a moment or two, it found a pale reflex in de Montigny's stern face.

'Who should know better than the Queen of Navarre,' he retorted, with a crude effort at gallantry, 'the power which beauty wields over all men?'

'Very well, then, Messire,' quoth she gaily. 'Listen to my plan, for I swear 'tis a good one, since it will marry your pride to my brother's hesitation. I propose that Monsieur le Duc d'Anjou shall first approach Madame Jacqueline under an assumed name. She hath never seen him—he is totally unknown in these parts; his incognito could therefore be easily kept up.'

'I don't quite understand,' muttered de Montigny with a frown.

'You will in a moment,' she rejoined. 'I propose, then, that Monsieur shall enact a part—the part of an unknown and noble prince who hath become secretly enamoured of Madame Jacqueline. I would suggest that he should appear before her closely masked and begin his part by sighing dolefully beneath her casement-window. Thus, at the outset, Madame Jacqueline, being what she is—romantic and not yet twenty—will feel an interest in this unknown swain. Her curiosity will be aroused, and she will not be loth to grant him the interview for which he will have sighed and begged in all humility.'

'But that is sheer folly, Madame!' broke in de Montigny, who had been at great pains to check his growing truculence.

'Folly?' she queried blandly. 'Why?'

'Because—because——' he argued gruffly.

'You promised on your honour, Messire,' she admonished gaily, 'that you would not again lose your temper.'

'But the folly of it!'

'Again I ask you—why folly?'

'Jacqueline is not a foolish child. She is not like to be taken in by so transparent a comedy.'

'It will not be transparent, Messire. Under my guidance the comedy will be exceedingly well acted. Madame Jacqueline will never know that her love-sick swain is the Duke of Anjou.'

'Then 'tis greater folly still!'

'Ah, that I swear it is not!' retorted Marguerite de Navarre hotly. 'Your Jacqueline is not twenty—she is proud and beautiful and romantic. Well! give her some romance and she'll thank you for it presently on her knees.'

'But——' protested de Montigny.

'Is not the whole thing simplicity in itself?' she broke in eagerly. 'The fame of Madame Jacqueline's beauty hath spread far and wide; what more rational than that a noble prince—too insignificant or too poor to enter the lists for her hand—should choose a romantic method to approach her? After all, what are we all striving for? That Monsieur shall see the lovely Jacqueline without her knowing that he proposes to woo her. If, in addition to that, we cause the two young people to fall in love with one another, we shall have done well; whilst, on the other hand, if, after having seen her, Monsieur retires from the candidature, the susceptibilities of the Flemish nation and of Madame Jacqueline will have been safeguarded.'

'How?'

'The unknown prince can vanish as mysteriously as he came. The story can reach Madame Jacqueline's ear that he was found killed by some other jealous swain outside her garden-gate.'

'Folly, Madame! Folly, I say!' protested de Montigny, perhaps a shade less forcibly than he had done before.

'Nay, then, 'tis a blessed folly, Messire, which oft outweighs counsels of wisdom.'

'But——'

'Ah! but me no more buts, Messire! Ye cannot bring forth one objection which I cannot easily combat. Think on it! A romantic girl, whose life will be brightened by this pretty adventure!'

'Perchance——'

'Perchance what?'

'She fall in love with the unknown swain.'

'So much the better, when she discovers he is her future lord.'

Then, as de Montigny really appeared to be struggling between consent and refusal, and doubt, anger, contempt, irresolution were alternately depicted in his rugged face, she continued persuasively:

'Think, Messire, how you safeguard your niece's feelings, her just pride, her maidenly reserve. Monsieur le Duc d'Anjou will either himself fall madly in love with Madame Jacqueline—in which case you will have added the leaven of passion to the stodgy dough of matrimony—or else he'll withdraw from the candidature, unknown, unsuspected; and the child will only have one pleasant dream the more to add to her illusions.'

Montigny was yielding. Who could, indeed, resist for long the insinuating tongue of Marguerite of Navarre, the eager glitter of her eyes, the strength of her will and of her personality. The sober-minded, stiff-necked and somewhat slow-witted Fleming felt himself literally swept off his feet in this whirlpool of adventure and of intrigue, and his language was not sufficiently glib to meet objection with objection, to parry or to thrust in this unequal duel of wits. Perhaps—had he not desired so passionately the alliance which he had been sent to conclude, had he been less firmly convinced that a union with France would prove the salvation of his people and of the country which he worshipped—he might have opposed an obstinate and gruff refusal to Marguerite's subtle scheme. But as it was, his resistance was soon disarmed; she even managed to conquer the irritation which Monsieur's very personality had aroused in his mind.

'We have not yet heard,' he said at last, 'what Monseigneur le duc d'Anjou hath to say on the matter.'

'Oh!' Monsieur hastened to say with mock sincerity, 'all that I have to say is that throughout my life I have from time to time and on many a momentous occasion, registered on oath that I would never be affianced to a woman whom I had not previously learned to love.'

'You will own, Messire,' broke in Marguerite gently, 'that this is a laudable sentiment.'

Nor did she think it desirable to let Messire de Montigny know that her unreliable brother had vowed but half an hour ago that if a wife were thrust upon him now he would, an he did not like her, repudiate her even at the foot of the altar. Shifty and irresponsible in most things, she knew him well enough to understand that in matters which affected himself and his desires, he would prove dangerous, obstinate and cruel.

'On my soul!' added Monsieur with well-assumed earnestness, 'I do assure you, Messire, that I knew nothing of my sister's project.'

'There was no time to put it before you, François,' rejoined Marguerite. 'It arose in my brain even while you parleyed together with Messire de Montigny and seemed unable to come to an understanding.'

'Then what says Monseigneur now?' reiterated the Flemish lord curtly.

'Well!' drawled Monsieur in his usual indecisive way, 'I say—I say that——'

'François!' admonished Marguerite sharply.

He felt himself driven into a corner, from which procrastination would no longer free him. In a manner the proposed adventure suited his temperament, and in any case it would help to put off the final and irrevocable decision. Therefore he was willing to fall in with it. Sentimental dalliance was an art which he knew to his finger-tips, and there was much in his sister's project which pleased his lazy, pulpy nature. To sigh beneath a woman's window, to woo a woman's love with honeyed words beneath a silken mask, to plan secret meetings and steal to lovers' trysts at dead of night, had always been an absorbing occupation for this degenerate prince. Now he felt de Montigny's stern gaze fixed upon him and his sister's admonitions rang in his ears. He knew that he had worn her love and patience almost to a breaking thread. He threw a final appealing look on Gilles de Crohin, but the latter's glance of amusement appeared as an encouragement. Well, Gilles would know! Gilles would appreciate! He, too, loved masks and casement-windows and fair women, tearful with love. Gilles also loved fighting, so he could do that, if any of it barred the way to Monsieur's comfort and peace.

'François!' came once more, appealing yet severe, from Marguerite of Navarre.

'What says Monseigneur?' reiterated de Montigny for the third time.

'I say that you have left me no choice, Messire,' quoth François due d'Anjou at last. 'It shall be as my sister desires.'

V

What was said after this is not much to the point. Enough that de Montigny yielded—very reluctantly, very slowly, be it admitted—but still, he did yield, and Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, was triumphant because she had got her way and because she would be allowed now to weave one of those subtle and sentimental plots which was as the breath of life to her inventive brain. She was also triumphant because she felt that nothing now stood in the way of the ambitious plans which she had framed for her favourite brother. She was triumphant because she felt the romance which she had concocted for his benefit would end in substantial gain for him—a richly-dowered wife and a sovereignty as rich as a crown. Then, at last, when she had won Messire de Montigny over absolutely and completely with her ready wit and her glib tongue, she extended a gracious hand to the somewhat shamefaced Fleming. 'Ah, Messire!' she said. 'You little realize how much you have done for your country this day!'

'I certainly have sacrificed my sanity and my better judgment,' he said gruffly. But he did bend the knee, and kissed the delicately-perfumed hand.

'And Madame Jacqueline will be at Cambray?' she asked.

'She is at Cambray now,' he replied.

'Then Monsieur had best repair thither right away. You yourself will be there, Messire?'

'Not I, alas, Madame!' he replied. 'After I have seen my brother and d'Inchy and obtained their consent to this wild-cat scheme, I join the army of the Prince of Orange at Utrecht.'

'But you'll see that my brother has a safe conduct and is sure of a welcome from Monseigneur d'Inchy?'

'Oh! d'Inchy will consent and so will my brother. They will make Monseigneur quite welcome,' rejoined de Montigny with a sigh. 'All of us would do much, Madame, in order to bring about this alliance, on which we have set our hearts.'

He was as wax now in the hands of this fascinating intriguer. In his heart of hearts he knew that sober reflection would come anon; he knew that it would take much persuasion ere his brother, and the other sober-minded Flemings who ruled the destinies of a great nation and of a rich heiress, would finally consent to these wild and romantic plans which had found their origin in an imaginative woman's brain; he knew that, mayhap, when he returned to Cambray, he would have to argue in his turn as the Queen of Navarre had argued with him. But in the meanwhile, now that he had given in, he was man enough and gentleman enough to fulfil his share of the bargain loyally and completely.

'That's brave!' exclaimed Marguerite. 'And I entreat you, lose no time. Monsieur could start for Cambray this night.'

'Would Monseigneur go alone?' queried de Montigny.

'No, no,' broke in the Duke fretfully. 'I could not go unattended. Think on it, Messire! A prince of the house of France!'

'Monseigneur would not, I presume, enter Cambray incognito with a retinue of men-at-arms,' retorted the other with a grim smile.

'No! not a retinue,' he rejoined unperturbed. 'I'll have Gilles with me and a serving-man; that is all.'

'Gilles?'

'Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont,' interposed Marguerite, as with a graceful gesture of the hand she indicated Gilles, who still stood silent and impassive in the corner of the room. 'This gallant gentleman is devoted to Monsieur's service and accompanies him wherever he goes.'

De Montigny's sharp, scrutinizing glance swept approvingly over Gilles de Crohin's martial figure.

'Very well then, so be it,' he said. 'I will give a safe conduct to Monseigneur under any name he will choose to assume, and one to Messire Gilles de Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, who will travel as his equerry. Is that what Madame la Reyne desires?'

'It is! It is!' cried Marguerite joyfully. 'Ah!' she added as she directed a reproachful glance on her brother, 'dilatoriness is not a part of your method, Messire de Montigny!'

'Mon Dieu, my good Margot!' quoth Monsieur tartly. 'You do not give Messire sufficient time to breathe.'

'Who wants to breathe,' she retorted gaily, 'when the destinies of kingdoms are at stake? The safe conducts, Messire! The safe conducts, I entreat! Why not sign them here and now?'

She jumped up from her chair, eager, young, full of vitality. In a moment, with her own dainty hands, she had placed ink-horn, sand, a quill, a sheet of paper upon the table.

'The safe conduct, Messire!' she reiterated excitedly. 'I vow that I'll don male attire and start for Cambray with my brother this night!'

And she would have done it, too, had not prudence dictated otherwise. Her fine, clever face, however, was well known in this part of Belgium. She had been at Cambray but a few weeks ago, moving heaven and earth and stirring up those heavy Flemings to activity on behalf of her brother. But she would have loved to be of that adventurous party. The conception of it had been born in her brain; it was her thing, her creation, her child, and she fretted at the thought that her brother's indolence, his shiftlessness and indecision might even yet jeopardize these glorious projects which she had formed.

'Sainte Vierge and chorus of angels, grant me patience!' she murmured as she watched, frowning and fretful, the deliberate movements of M. de Montigny. The Duc d'Anjou chortled quietly to himself. He loved to see his impetuous sister fuming over the dilatoriness of another, and now he gave a low cackle of delight when the Fleming first drew a chair slowly to the table, then sat down and settled himself to write. He next took up the quill pen, examined it, tested it on his thumb-nail, turned the sheet of paper over and over. Obviously he was not very much used to rapid caligraphy, and Marguerite's temper was oozing out of her very finger-tips as she watched that quill pen travelling with ponderous slowness along the paper.

'In what name shall I make out the safe-conduct?' he asked presently.

'Oh, ye gods!' exclaimed Marguerite impatiently. 'Any name, Messire—or leave the name in blank——'

'I cannot do that,' rejoined de Montigny deliberately. 'M. d'Inchy, who is governor of the city and of the province, would not wish it. And since Monseigneur desires to enter Cambray incognito——'

'Any name will do,' she retorted.

'Still, I must have one——'

'Then, in God's name, make out the safe-conduct in the name of Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont, travelling with his equerry Messire Gilles de Crohin and with his serving-man. Will that satisfy Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy?'

De Montigny thought the matter over for a moment or two ere he replied, wholly unperturbed, 'I think so.'

And thus did the document stand. A permit to enter the City of Cambray was granted to Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont, to his equerry Messire Gilles de Crohin and to his serving-man, by Edmond, Sire de Montigny, acting on behalf of Roger, Baron d'Inchy, governor of the province of Cambrésis, and safe conduct was assured them on their way thither.[[1]]

[[1]] This document which Messire de Montigny made out and signed on that memorable occasion is still preserved among the archives of the City of Cambray. At any rate, it was still extant in the spring of 1914, when the writer of this veracious chronicle was granted a sight of it. Since then the hordes of the modern Huns have swept over the fair lands of Belgium and France. They may have destroyed these archives as they did so much of what had historical and romantic interest.

'Well! you have your wish, my dear sister,' was the Duc d'Anjou's sole comment as he saw the look of impatience on Marguerite's fair face give place to one of triumph and of joy.

CHAPTER IV
HOW MONSIEUR KEPT HIS WORD

I

When M. de Montigny—after much ponderous leavetaking—finally took his departure, accompanied by Messire Gilles de Crohin, it is positively averred that Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, forgot for a moment her position and her dignity and danced around the narrow room like a child who has had its way after much fighting and arguing. It is even said that she dragged her dearly-loved François up from his chair and that, seizing both his hands, she forced him to join her in a whirl which literally swept him off his feet, raised a cloud of dust from the old wooden floor, and finally sent him sprawling and dizzy, and thoroughly out of temper, up against the table, from whence he poured a volley of abuse upon his devoted sister.

But I have oft marvelled if this story be true, for, of a truth, there was no one there to witness these events, and Queen Margot herself never put them on record. But there was Messire Gilles, and where he was at the moment I, for one, cannot say. He did accompany Messire de Montigny as far as the courtyard, and saw that noble Fleming ride off with an obviously heavy heart, after what had only been a partially successful errand. We are not going to suppose that Messire Gilles paused on his way back to the apartments of his princely master in order to listen at the keyhole. He was more like to have kicked open the door with scant ceremony and seen the young Queen of Navarre dancing a rigadoon in the middle of the floor with her reluctant brother. Certain it is, that anon he did stand there under the lintel, coughing and spluttering as the dust caught in his throat, and coughing so loudly, be it said, that the noise which he made drowned some of Monsieur's most sanguinary expletives. The next moment he had once more entered the room and closed the door behind him; and Marguerite paused in her mad dance in order to clap her hands gleefully together.

'Ah, Messire Gilles!' she exclaimed excitedly. 'Is it not wonderful? Is it not great? All arranged, and both Monsieur and that tiresome Fleming satisfied! Is it not a triumph, I say?'

'A triumph, indeed, your Majesty!' replied Gilles with a grim smile. ''Tis only our chief actor, methinks, who doth not look overjoyed.'

'I know,' rejoined Marguerite, with a sigh. 'But, then, Monsieur never really looks pleased. So I entreat you, Messire, remain with him now and make all arrangements for the journey to-morrow. Nay! 'twere far better you started this very night, slept and rested at St. Quentin and arrived at Cambray the day after to-morrow. I leave you with Messire Gilles, François,' she added, turning to Monsieur who, ill-humoured and still growling like a frowsy dog, was putting his rumpled toilet in order. 'Let him make all arrangements for your journey. He is always of good counsel.'

'Good counsel!' muttered Monsieur. 'Good counsel! I am sick to death of good counsels. Had I been left to myself——'

'Nothing would have happened, c'est entendu,' she riposted gaily. 'Nay! you'll not damp my ardour again, François; and you cannot deny that I have satisfied M. de Montigny whilst keeping my solemn promise to you. So I leave you now with Messire Gilles. The way is prepared. And, remember,' she added earnestly, 'that you are pledged to me as I was to you. I have fulfilled my share of the bargain. If you fail me now, I will never look upon your face again!'

II

As soon as Marguerite de Navarre had gone from the room, Gilles de Crohin drew a folded missive from inside his doublet and handed it to Monsieur.

'Just came by messenger from Paris,' he said curtly.

Monsieur snatched eagerly at the missive. It had been carefully folded into a tiny compass, tied with a shell-pink ribbon and sealed with mauve-coloured wax. Monsieur broke the seal and read the letter. A flush—which might have been one of pleasure, of excitement or of anger, or of all three combined—spread over his face. He read the letter again, and a dark frown appeared between his brows. Then he looked up into the face of the one faithful friend whom his many treacheries had not driven from his side.

'Gilles,' he said dolefully, 'I cannot go to Cambray.'

'I thought as much, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles dryly. 'That letter is from Madame de Marquette.'

'It is, my good Gilles,' sighed Monsieur. 'It is!' Then as Gilles said nothing, he added fretfully: 'She had promised to let me know as soon as Monsieur le Comte, her husband, would be absent from Paris.'

'Ah!' was Gilles' simple comment. 'And is M. le Comte de Marquette absent from Paris at this moment?'

'Cooling his heels in the dungeons of Vincennes, my good Gilles,' replied Monsieur lightly.

'Ah!' uttered Gilles once more; this time without any comment.

'Yes. I let His Majesty, my brother, know indirectly of certain doings of Monsieur de Marquette. I have no doubt, therefore, that that estimable worthy is incarcerated at Vincennes by now.'

'Under a false charge of conspiracy?'

'False? No!' retorted Monsieur. 'Doth he not conspire to keep his charming wife a virtual prisoner in his own palace?'

'Therefore he is to be kept a real prisoner under a denunciation from Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon and d'Anjou,' riposted Gilles dryly.

'Oh! not a denunciation, my good Gilles!' said Monsieur, wholly unperturbed. 'I only gave His Majesty a hint that M. de Marquette was not quite so faithful a subject as one would desire.'

'And the hint has landed M. de Marquette in Vincennes rightly enough.'

'Apparently,' concluded Monsieur placidly, as he held the delicately-scented missive of Madame de Marquette to his nose. 'So you see, my good Gilles,' he continued after a slight pause, 'how inconvenient it will be for me to go a-wooing a ponderous Flemish wench just now. Madame de Marquette is so dainty, so exquisite, so—so—what shall I say? ... What would you do, now, Gilles?' he added, with a sudden change of tone, 'if you were in my shoes?'

'Oh, I, Monseigneur,' quoth Gilles, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. 'Not being a prince of the blood I would probably stick to my promise and go and woo the Flemish wench at Cambray.'

'I believe you would, you dog!' retorted Monsieur with a yawn. 'And then hurry back to Paris, eh, in order to console Madame de Marquette?'

'Possibly, Monseigneur,' concluded Gilles simply.

'Well, then, the only difference 'twixt you and me, my dear Gilles—that is, 'twixt your moral sentiments and mine—is that I'll hie me first to console Madame de Marquette, and having done that, I'll—I'll——'

'Gravely offend the most devoted of sisters, Queen Marguerite of Navarre,' broke in Gilles quickly.

'Yes,' admitted Monsieur. 'I imagine that dear Margot will be in one of her most fretting humours when she finds that I am half-way to Paris instead of to Cambray. She hath vowed that if I fail her now in her schemes she'll never look on my face again. And she won't—for at least six months,' he added peevishly. 'Trust her for that! Margot is nothing if not obstinate! And my chance of getting a rich wife and some rich provinces of these accursed Netherlands will have vanished for ever. Ah, Gilles! my good Gilles!' he concluded, with naïve induction. 'You see what comes of it, if a man allows himself to be overruled by women!'

'Well!' retorted the other with a careless laugh. 'Meseems that Monseigneur hath not much cause to quarrel with his fate this time. King of the Netherlands!' he exclaimed, and gave a long, low whistle of appreciation. ''Tis no small matter——'

'Bah!' rejoined Monsieur with a shrug of the shoulders. 'To be a king among these dull-witted, slow-going Flemings is not altogether an enviable existence. Would you care for it, Gilles?'

'Oh, I, Monseigneur?' riposted Gilles gaily. 'I have so few kingly attributes.'

'Better to be Duc d'Alençon in Paris, eh, than King in Antwerp or in Ghent? Brrr!' added Monsieur, with a mock shudder. 'Think of the Flemish women, my good man!'

'I have thought of them, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles dryly, 'once or twice since we came into Flanders.'

'Well! and what did you think of them?'

'That God has fashioned uglier ones.'

'Where?'

'In many places—even in Paris.'

'Not often, Gilles.'

'I'll grant that, Monseigneur, an you command.'

'Now this Jacqueline, for instance——'

'Madame Jacqueline, Monseigneur?'

'Yes!' And Monseigneur sighed. 'I have got to marry her, Gilles, if I wish for the sovereignty of the Netherlands.'

'Messire de Montigny hath been at pains to tell us, Monseigneur, that Madame Jacqueline is very beautiful—very beautiful, an it please you.'

'It would please me if she were beautiful. But have you ever seen a beautiful Fleming, Gilles?'

Gilles de Crohin was silent.

'Have you, Gilles?' insisted the Duke.

'Yes, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles curtly. 'Once.'

'The devil you did! Where?'

'In the land of dreams, Monseigneur.'

'Then it could not have been Madame Jacqueline. She is reality, alas! Ponderous reality, I fear! I have got to woo her, Gilles.'

'Yes, Monseigneur.'

'Under a mask and an assumed name.'

'No better way hath yet been found for wooing a wench.'

'I shall have to sing and sigh beneath a casement, and by the light of the moon risk breaking my neck in trying to climb up to a window.'

''Twill not be the first time Monseigneur hath done any of these things, and with a less worthy object to boot.'

'But this time, Gilles, I might be so much better employed in consoling Madame de Marquette for the absence of her lord.'

'Whereas, now, Monseigneur will have to send word back by the messenger—who, by the way, still waits below—that the denunciation against M. de Marquette was an error, and that you desire his immediate release.'

'Gilles!' retorted Monsieur coolly, 'have you become an idiot?'

'I didn't think so, Monseigneur.'

'Very well, then, do not talk as one. M. de Marquette cannot be better occupied than in cooling his heels at Vincennes. I am going to Paris, Gilles, in order to explain this to a charming grass-widow.'

'Yes, Monseigneur. When?'

'To-night.'

'Monseigneur goes to Paris to-night?'

'Yes. I have said so.'

'And Monseigneur means it?'

'Mon Dieu! Of course I mean it! You don't suppose that I am going to allow that exquisite Madame de Marquette to pine away in solitude, do you?'

'But Madame Jacqueline, Monseigneur?' protested Gilles de Crohin. 'The crown of the Netherlands——'

'Madame Jacqueline may go to the devil, Gilles, and the crown of the Netherlands after her——'

'But, Madame la Reyne——!'

'Ah! that is another matter. My dear sister can go to the devil if she likes, but I cannot send her thither. You must remain here and explain matters to her, Gilles.'

'I, Monseigneur?' exclaimed Gilles, very much crestfallen at this prospect.

'Yes. Not to-night, of course. To-morrow morning. I shall be a long way off by then—too far for her to run after me and bring me back like a whipped schoolboy; which, I doubt not, she were quite capable of doing! Once I get to Paris, I'll take care that she does not find me, and she'll have to pacify these tiresome Flemings as best she can.'

Gilles de Crohin looked down for a moment or two on the sprawling figure of the master whom he served—the long, loose limbs stretched out lazily, the narrow shoulders decked in exquisite satin, the perfumed beard, the delicate hands, the full, sensual lips and weak chin and jaw which characterized this last descendant of the Valois. But not a line of his own strong, rugged face betrayed just what he thought, and after a while he resumed in his dry, quiet way:

'I doubt, Monseigneur, that the tiresome Flemings will allow themselves to be pacified—nor will Madame la Reyne de Navarre, I'm thinking,' he muttered under his bristling moustache.

'She must, and they must, my good Gilles,' riposted Monsieur airily; and, with a wide gesture of his beringed hand, he appeared to wave aside all the obstacles which threatened the even course of his path of pleasure. 'Mordieu, man! If you are going to raise difficulties——' he said.

'The difficulties are there, Monseigneur. I am not raising them.'

'Well, then, you will have to smoothe them down for me, that's all! What do I pay you for?' he added roughly.

'I was not aware that Monseigneur was paying me for anything,' replied Gilles good-humouredly; 'or had paid me anything these three years past.'

'Then why do you serve me, I wonder?'

'I have oft wondered, too!' rejoined Gilles calmly.

'My brother Henri would pay you better; so would my brother-in-law of Navarre.'

'That's just it, Monseigneur. Since there is not much fighting to do just now, other princes would pay me for doing dirty work for them, no doubt. But, being constituted as I am, if I have to do dirty work for any one I would sooner not be paid for doing it. This may sound curious morality, but so it is.'

The Duke laughed.

'Morality? From you, my good Gilles?'

'It does sound incongruous, does it not, Monseigneur?' said Gilles placidly. 'A soldier of fortune, like myself, cannot of a truth afford to have any morality. Mine consists in forgetting the many sins which I have committed and leaving others to commit theirs in peace.'

'Admirable in sentiment, my friend,' concluded Monsieur, with a cynical laugh. 'You will, therefore, leave me in peace to join Madame de Marquette, if I wish?'

'How can I prevent it, Monseigneur?'

'You cannot. But you can serve me by conciliating my sister during my absence.'

'I will serve Monseigneur to the best of my ability.'

'Very well, then. I start for Paris this night.'

'So Monseigneur hath already deigned to say.'

'I will let my sister understand that you and I are starting for Cambray. She will be overjoyed. You will ride with me as far as Noyon, and then under cover of the darkness you will return hither.'

'Yes, Monseigneur?'

'To-morrow, during the forenoon—not too early, remember—you will seek audience of Her Majesty and explain to her that unavoidable business caused me to change my mind at the eleventh hour; that I have gone—whither you know not—but that I shall return within a few weeks, or a few months, as soon as I have tired of my present business, and that in the meanwhile I adjure her, as she loves me, to keep those stodgy Flemings in a good humour. You understand?'

'I understand, Monseigneur.'

'Of course, Madame Marguerite will fume and fret——'

'Of course.'

'She will also probably throw books, or a slipper, or a cushion at your head——'

'Or the fire-irons, Monseigneur'

'But you won't mind that——'

'On the contrary, I shall enjoy it.'

'The more my sister frets the quicker will her choler be over.'

'The quicker, too, will the furniture of the hostel be smashed to pieces.'

'And when she hath calmed down, you and she can sit together quietly and make plans for the conciliation of my future loyal Flemish subjects.'

'I shall greatly look forward to so peaceful a tête-à-tête.'

'Then, that's settled!' concluded Monsieur airily, as he finally rose from his chair, yawned and stretched. 'Palsambleu! what a day of it I have had! Own to it, my good Gilles, I have well deserved a holiday and the company of Madame de Marquette after all this business and the scoldings and objurgations of my impetuous sister!'

'I doubt not, Monseigneur,' responded Gilles dryly, 'that Fate will, as usual, be kind and give you the full measure of your deserts.'

'Amen to that, my friend. Now, see to it that we get to horse within the hour. I'll to my dear Margot and receive her embraces and her praises for my readiness. And, remember,' he added warningly, just as Gilles, turning on his heel, was striding towards the door, 'that you will have to impress it upon Her Majesty most emphatically in your interview to-morrow that it will be no use her trying to find out where I am. Madame de Marquette and I will be beyond her reach. Between you and me, my good Gilles, I know of a cosy nest where——'

But Gilles de Crohin was apparently no longer in a mood to listen patiently to his Royal master's rigmarole.

'What about the safe conduct?' he broke in curtly. And he pointed to the papers which Messire de Montigny had been at such pains to complete.

'Oh! put it away, my good Gilles,' replied Monsieur carelessly. 'Put it away! It will be very handy a month hence, or two months, or three, when I am ready to go and woo that very solid Flemish maid.'

Without another word, Gilles de Crohin picked up the safe-conduct, folded it carefully and slipped it into the inner pocket of his doublet. Then, after a somewhat perfunctory obeisance, he strode out of the room.

Monsieur listened in complacent silence to the firm footsteps as they gradually died away down the corridor. Then he shrugged his shoulders and whistled softly to himself.

'A good fellow, that Gilles,' he murmured. 'I wonder what my dear sister will do to him to-morrow when she hears——?'

CHAPTER V
WHAT MARGUERITE OF NAVARRE DID WHEN
SHE HEARD THE NEWS

I

When Messire Gilles de Crohin sought audience of Her Majesty the Queen of Navarre on the following day at noon, she had just finished dressing. She had been up betimes, been for a ride in the cool of the early morning; she had broken her fast with a hearty appetite, for she was young and full of health and vitality. All night she had had happy dreams. The brother whom she loved, just as a mother loves her most fractious and most unmanageable child, had at last been brought to act decisively for himself; the goal of her ambitions for him was in sight; in a very few months she—Marguerite—would have the satisfaction of seeing him Sovereign Lord—King, perhaps—of one of the finest countries in Europe, as powerful and more than was brother Henri, King of France.

She woke up happy, gay as a lark, contented in mind and merry of humour. After her ride and her breakfast she had a rest, then she put on a pretty gown, for she was a beautiful woman and knew the value of clothes. Her intention now was to remain in La Fère while her dear brother was in Cambray and to watch over his interests until after he had been formally betrothed to Jacqueline de Broyart. After that, she would proceed to Nerac to rejoin her husband.

Having dressed and dismissed her waiting-women, Marguerite de Navarre sat down beside the open casement-window in order to indulge in pleasant daydreams. Five minutes later, one of her serving-men entered in order to announce to Her Majesty that Messire Gilles de Crohin, Seigneur de Froidmont, respectfully begged for an immediate audience.

There are moments in life when to all the senses it appears as if a blow of sledge-hammer power and weight has suddenly fallen upon the brain, numbing every thought, every capability and every sentient action. Just such a moment was this one for Marguerite of Navarre. That simple announcement—that Messire Gilles de Crohin desired an audience—was the sledge-hammer blow which seemed to crush in the one instant her entire volition and energy and to leave her unthinking, spell-bound, a mere breathing, human machine, alive only by the power of the eyes, which remained fixed upon the doorway wherein presently she would see Messire Gilles.

It was quite unconsciously that she had intimated to the serving-man that she would receive Messire de Crohin. After that, she sat on and gazed upon the doorway and listened as the familiar footfall resounded along the corridor. Something had happened, or Gilles would not be here. He would be on his way to Cambray with Monsieur. Strangely enough, it never occurred to Marguerite of Navarre that some simple, easily-explained if untoward accident had brought Messire back to La Fère. She knew that something terrible had happened, even before she saw Gilles standing at attention upon the threshold.

But while the serving-man was still within earshot, she found the courage to say quite quietly and almost naturally:

'Enter, Messire, I pray you, and close the door behind you. You are right welcome.'

Then, as soon as the door was closed, she added rapidly and in a curious choked and hoarse voice:

'My brother?' And as Gilles made no immediate reply, she continued: 'He hath met with an accident? He is dead?'

'No! No!' protested Gilles quickly.

'Then, what is it?' she queried. 'Speak, man, or I die of terror!'

'Monseigneur le Duc d'Anjou did not go to Cambray last night, your Majesty,' said Gilles quietly.

Marguerite frowned. She did not understand. The news now appeared trivial after what she had feared.

'Not gone to Cambray?' she said slowly. 'But I saw him go—with you, Messire.'

'We started together, your Majesty, and rode together as far as Noyon. Then Monseigneur went on his way and I returned hither.'

'Monseigneur went on his way? What do you mean? And why did you go to Noyon, which is not on the way to Cambray?'

Gilles de Crohin sighed with impatience. But for his respect for the exalted lady, he would have thought her strangely dull-witted to-day.

'Monseigneur did not go to Cambray,' he reiterated slowly, like one who is trying to infuse a lesson into the mind of a doltish child. 'He hath gone to Paris, on his way to some spot unknown to any one—certainly unknown to me. He will be absent weeks—perhaps months. He desired your Majesty to try and conciliate Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy and the other Flemish lords as best you can.'

Marguerite of Navarre listened to Gilles until the end. Slowly, very slowly, the perception of what had happened penetrated into her brain. Her eyes were fixed upon him, glowing with an intense inward fire. Gradually her breath came and went with ever-increasing rapidity. Her left hand, which rested on the arm of her chair, gripped the carving with a more and more convulsive clutch. Then suddenly, without a cry or warning, her right hand fastened on a heavy, unloaded pistol which lay, carelessly flung aside, upon the table close to her, and she flung it at Gilles de Crohin's head.

He dodged, and the massive weapon struck the door behind him and fell with a clatter to the floor.

'I could kill you,' said Marguerite de Navarre huskily, 'for bringing me this news!'

'If killing me would bring Monseigneur back,' riposted Gilles quietly, 'your Majesty would be more than welcome to do it.'

This sobered her, and she pulled herself together, blushing to the roots of her hair when she realized that her hand had already seized upon the small Italian dagger which, in accordance with the prevailing fashion, she wore fastened to her girdle. These were but semi-civilized times, and the days were not very far distant when the messenger of evil tidings was slain for his pains. But now, when Marguerite de Navarre encountered Gilles de Crohin's quiet, good-humoured gaze, she dropped the little dagger and laughed almost shamefacedly.

'I ought not to have let him out of my sight,' she said simply.

'It would have been wiser, your Majesty,' rejoined Gilles with a sigh.

'Madame de Marquette sent for him, I suppose.' Then, as Gilles made no reply to that, she added with sudden fierce contempt: 'And you helped him to commit this treachery?'

'Would you have me betray the man who trusts me?' he retorted.

'He ordered you to play the farce of starting for Cambray?'

'Yes.'

'To throw dust in my eyes?'

'Yes.'

'To accompany him as far as Noyon?'

'Yes.'

'Then to return hither under cover of darkness?'

'Yes.'

'And to greet me on the morrow with the fait accompli?'

'Yes.'

'Holy Virgin!' she exclaimed. 'That men should be so base!'

Tears of mortification, of humiliation, of wild, passionate anger, had risen to her eyes. Heavy sobs choked the words in her throat. For once in her life Marguerite of Navarre felt weak and undone and was not ashamed of her weakness. She had piloted the chariot of her brother's destiny with such marvellous success up to the dizzy heights of her own restless ambition only to see it fall crashing to the ground through his own treachery.

'Oh, Messire Gilles!' she cried with bitter reproach; 'if only you had served me as well as you have served my brother!'

'I would give my life in your Majesty's service now,' he rejoined simply, 'if anything that I could do could retrieve Monseigneur's folly.'

'If anything that you could do could retrieve Monseigneur's folly?' murmured Marguerite slowly, laboriously, like a child repeating a lesson. 'Alas! nothing can be done now to retrieve that, Messire.'

II

Outside, a soft-toned bell struck the midday hour. The little market-place beyond the courtyard lay bathed in wintry sunlight. Men and women were moving to and fro, stopping to chat with one another or exchanging a hasty greeting; men-at-arms jingled their spurs upon the uneven pavements; burghers in dark cloth surtouts flitted solemnly across the place. Marguerite watched with dreamy, unconscious eyes the pulsating life of the somnolent little city. With her, even life appeared at a standstill. With this hideous treachery on the part of her beloved François, with this unexpected shattering of all her hopes in sight of goal, she felt as if she herself no longer existed, as if some other entity had chased her soul away—her loving, ambitious, romantic soul—and taken possession of her body.

Gilles stood by, silent—looking down on her with infinite compassion. He, the poor, homeless, penniless soldier of fortune, found it in his heart to pity this young and adulated queen. He would have liked to help her if he could. But the situation was now a hopeless impasse. The curtain had rung up upon a brilliant drama of glory and of satisfied ambition; but the principal actor was not there to play his part, and the drama must fail for want of him.

'Shall I go now, your Majesty?' asked Gilles at last.

But she made no reply. She sat on in the high-backed chair, looking out upon the world beyond. There were happy people out there, contented people. People who had humble aspirations, but who saw them fulfilled. Better far to long for mere subsistence, to have few and simple desires and see them satisfied, than to let one's ambition soar to impossible heights which must for ever remain unattainable. And Gilles remained standing some distance away from the Queen, watching a whole world of varied emotions flitting rapidly over her mobile face. First came anger and despair, hot resentment and bitter contempt. The eyes looked steely and glittered with a fierce, inward wrath, whilst not one line of tenderness softened the curve of the closely set mouth. At this stage of her grim meditations it was obvious to the keen watcher that Marguerite de Navarre felt that she would never quite forgive the dearly loved brother this culminating act of treachery.

Then something of the hardness of the look went, and gave place to one of utter hopelessness which, to Gilles who knew her buoyant disposition, appeared quite heartrending. It were absolutely useless now, that look seemed to say, to try and redeem so much folly, such black and despicable cowardice. And there was the shameful humiliation too, to endure, the necessary abasement before those stiff-necked Flemish lords, those proud purists, rigid in their code of honour. There was the bitter acknowledgment to come that a prince of the House of France could so vilely break his word.

But presently, even as the tears of wrath and humiliation still glistened in Marguerite de Navarre's beautiful eyes, there crept gradually into her face a strange look of puzzlement. It came slowly, very slowly, just as if Fate, having struck her blow, was beginning to relent and to whisper words of hope. Frowns came and went between the pencilled brows, and inaudible whispers seemed to come through the slightly parted lips. Then, still quite gradually, a glow of excitement spread over the face, the eyes shone less sombre, a ray of light, like unto a faint smile, played round the corners of the lips.

Then Marguerite de Navarre turned her pretty head and fixed her eyes upon Gilles. And he who stood by, listening and watching, heard distinctly that her lips murmured the two little words: 'Why not?'

A quarter of an hour had gone by. Both the actors in this palpitating little interlude had lost count of time—Gilles gazing pityingly, almost remorsefully, on the Queen, and she, thinking, thinking, wrestling with Fate, unwilling even now to give in.

And all the while she was looking on Gilles with a puzzled frown, whilst her lips kept on murmuring, as if unconsciously: 'Why not?'

III

'Messire de Crohin,' said Marguerite of Navarre at last. 'You said just now that you would give your life in my service if anything that you could do at this hour would retrieve Monsieur's folly. Did you mean all that you said, Messire?'

Gilles smiled. 'I am not a Royal prince, Madame,' he said simply. 'I cannot afford the luxury of playing with my word. 'Tis all I have.'

She sighed and looked on him with those appealing yet compelling eyes of hers, which had such marvellous power to bend poor, feeble man to her will.

'Oh! but do repeat what you said, Messire,' she said naïvely. 'If you only knew how I long for an assurance of fidelity from one who is really a man!'

'I do repeat then, your Majesty, what I said before,' rejoined Gilles solemnly; 'that I would give my life in your service if aught that I can do will retrieve Monseigneur's folly.'

She seemed to drink in his simple words as if they were nectar to her soul—her soul, which was thirsting for loyalty, for service, for strength and truth. Then she said quietly:

'I'll put you to the test, Messire.'

'If your Majesty pleases,' he replied.

'I pray you,' she then resumed, speaking very quietly and with slow but firm emphasis, 'to listen in silence and to the very end to what I am going to say. However surprised or—or—unwilling you may feel, do not raise any objections till after I have told you of the scheme which I have just evolved in my mind, and which I firmly believe will yet retrieve our family honour and secure for my brother the throne of the Netherlands. God knows,' she added with a bitter sigh, 'that he hath not deserved that you or I should still be working for him! But when a prince of the House of Valois breaks his word, the shame of it bears upon us all.'

She paused, and in accordance with her desire Gilles remained silent, listening.

'Messire Gilles,' resumed Marguerite after awhile. 'There is, so I am told, Valois blood in your veins. That blood hath given you a glibness of tongue, at times wholly out of keeping with your adventurous temperament. It has also given you—so gossip avers—that persuasive eloquence which tickles pleasantly the ear of women. In temperament and in bearing Nature hath favoured you more generously than she did my brother. This perhaps is the only possible hitch in the plan which I have devised.'

Gilles frowned. It was his turn now to be exceedingly puzzled.

'It has been arranged, Messire—and to this the Flemish lord gave his consent—that Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon shall woo his future wife under a mask—under a mask,' she reiterated slowly. 'Ah!' she exclaimed, seeing that Gilles had suddenly given an involuntary gasp. 'I see that already you understand! There is something that you can do, Messire, to retrieve Monsieur's folly. You can act the rôle which I had assigned to him. You can don a mask and woo Madame Jacqueline from beneath her casement window. How oft in the past years have you impersonated your princely master in a less avowable cause? How many blows and sabre-cuts have you received on his behalf whilst he pursued some less worthy adventure? Nay! you cannot deny that. I know so much of what my dear brother would conceal from me. It can be done, Messire Gilles,' she added eagerly. 'It can be done, if you will loyally and faithfully serve me to this end.'

She paused, breathless and excited, and with glowing eyes fixed upon Gilles de Crohin as if to probe his very soul and to extract from him not only a consent, of which she was already assured, but the same enthusiasm for her scheme which she felt herself.

'Messire Gilles!' she exclaimed. 'It can be done! And now, in Heaven's name, I pray you, speak! I can endure your silence no longer!'

Gilles smiled at her quaint inconsequence. Then he passed his toil-worn hand through his rumpled hair. His look of utter bewilderment was so ludicrous that, despite her anxiety, Marguerite could not help but laugh.

'Oh, Messire Gilles!' she cried. 'If you only knew how comical you look!'

'Comical, Madame?' retorted Gilles with a growl. 'So would you look comical if you were suddenly confronted with so wild a proposition!'

'Wild, Messire?' riposted the Queen. ''Tis the Flemish lords who would be wild if my inventive brain had not conceived the proposition.'

'But, Madame——' protested Gilles feebly.

'But, Messire,' retorted the Queen, mimicking the unfortunate man. 'Tell me,' she added more soberly, 'have you or have you not impersonated Monsieur before now?'

'Well!' murmured Gilles, 'I confess that I...'

'There was the affair with Monsieur de Ravache, for instance,' she continued firmly. 'The sword-thrust which that invincible duellist received in a certain affair of honour last June was openly attributed to Monsieur; but those who were in the know have averred that it was Messire Gilles de Crohin, and not the Duc d'Anjou, who fought Monsieur de Ravache that night.'

Gilles shrugged his shoulders and Marguerite went on glibly:

'And in the fracas in a low booth outside Arras, when an irate father and three bellicose brothers vowed vengeance against the princely lover of an over-trusting wench, was it indeed Monsieur Duc d'Anjou who, beneath a mask and cloak, kept half a dozen sturdy swordsmen at bay for close on half an hour? Or was it not rather Messire Gilles de Crohin who fought single-handed thus valiantly, even while Monsieur, disguised and furtive, found safety in flight?'

'Your Majesty, I protest,' broke in Gilles firmly, 'that rumour is nearly always a lying jade——'

'Bah!' quoth Marguerite lightly. 'I'll challenge you to deny either of these tales on your oath. And there is the story of the jeweller's daughter, and that of Madame de Franqueville. The latter, I believe, is still under the impression that M. le Duc d'Anjou is the most ardent lover and the most chivalrous foe in France and that he wears about his person all the evidences of a hard and adventurous life. But why argue, Messire?' she continued impatiently. 'Even if you had never in your life impersonated the shifty prince whom you serve, I would ask you to do it now for his sake as well as for mine own.'

'But, in the name of all the saints in the calendar!' exclaimed Gilles with an air of laughable helplessness, 'how is it all going to be done? I shall be seen ... recognized ... the fraud exposed within the first few hours ... and our second state will be distinctly worse than our first.'

'Exposed?' rejoined the Queen coolly. 'Who by? Monsieur hath never been in Cambray. Who should be acquainted with his appearance? And, moreover, there will be the mask to ward off any untoward or chance recognition.'

'But hath your Majesty thought of Messire de Montigny?' retorted Gilles dryly. 'He hath just spent half an hour in Monseigneur's presence and is not blind, I imagine. A mere mask would not deceive him.'

'Ah! I thought that you would mention Messire de Montigny,' riposted Marguerite triumphantly. 'Have you forgotten that he said he would only just have time to see his brother and M. d'Inchy in Cambray, as he was on his way to join the army of the Prince of Orange at Utrecht?'

'He may return at any time.'

'He may,' said Marguerite calmly. 'I did not say,' she added with a significant little smile, 'that there would be no risks, no dangers, connected with the undertaking. If you fear to affront them, Messire ... why, there's nothing more to be said.'

Marguerite de Navarre was far too clever not to know that in uttering the word 'danger' she would be playing her trump card. 'Gilles' objections were suddenly dissolved like smoke in thin air. He laughed and said good-humouredly:

'That was a clever move, Madame! I hated the affair until you spoke of danger.'

'And now?' she queried, smiling.

'Now? Now?' he said. 'I merely repeat: how is it going to be done?'

'In exactly the same manner in which the affair, say, with Madame de Franqueville was conducted,' she replied.

'But there we had an object to attain, Madame—a none too avowable one, I own, but still an object. But here ... suppose I sigh beneath Madame Jacqueline's window effectually? Suppose she falls in love with her unknown swain? Suppose she grants him an interview?.... We should still be where we now are! 'Tis Monseigneur who will have to marry Madame Jacqueline de Broyart—not I.'

'Do not trouble your head about that, good Messire,' retorted Marguerite dryly. 'We only want to gain time. You do your wooing; I'll see that Monsieur is there to wed.'

'But——'

'Oh! I know him well enough,' she continued with an impatient sigh. 'His present caprice—I suppose it is Madame de Marquette—will not last a week. At the end of a sennight or less he will come back fawning to me, satiated, bored and repentant, ready to do anything—even to marry Madame Jacqueline blindfolded—in order to regain my good graces. All that we want,' pleaded Marguerite with a sudden softening of her voice and of her whole attitude, 'is to gain time—a few days' time, Messire—while I go hunting for my faithless brother. I cannot go and tell Monseigneur de Lalain and M. le Baron d'Inchy that Monsieur Duc d'Anjou of the princely House of Valois hath fled from his obligations. Those obligations must be fulfilled at all costs, Messire ... at all costs, you understand? Nominally, Monsieur must be in Cambray within three days, and you must keep Madame Jacqueline amused and happy until I send you word that Monsieur is on his way—ready to take your place.'

'But——' murmured Gilles again, in a final attempt at protest.

She, however, would not allow him to get in a word edgewise now.

'When Monseigneur arrives,' she went on with eager volubility, 'you, Messire, will give up your dual rôle, become once again the one and only Sire de Froidmont. When Monsieur appears unmasked before his promised bride, we must see to it that plenty of padding do supplement his somewhat narrow shoulders and sunken chest, for Madame Jacqueline and her entourage will have been accustomed by then to your broad stature, Messire; but no one will have seen the face of the masked swain. Oh, Messire Gilles! Messire Gilles!' she exclaimed, clasping her hands together with a gesture of passionate entreaty. 'With a little thought, a little care and a little luck, it can all be done so easily if you will but consent! Say yes, Messire! and the prayers of a harassed Queen and a doting sister will bring blessings down upon your loyal head!'

IV

The tears were in Marguerite de Navarre's eyes as she extended an appealing hand to Gilles de Crohin. He, poor wretch, had not much choice. His loyalty had been requisitioned in such terms that he could not refuse. And, remember, that Gilles de Crohin, the soldier of fortune, was nothing if not adventurous. Deep down in his heart something was already stirring which tickled his imagination and fired his ardent blood. Like a war-horse scenting battle, he scented excitement, danger, hair-breadth escapes, sword-thrusts given and received—all of which was to him the very essence of life. And there was something exceedingly pleasant, too, in the gratitude of this beautiful and accomplished woman—a Queen indeed, in the highest acceptance of the word.

Messire Gilles' life had been very dull and dreary of late. He had set out once—very long ago and when he was a mere lad—to carve out his own fortune in the world. Penniless, and bearing a noble name which the penury of two generations had somewhat tarnished, he dreamed, when he was still in his teens, that Fate reserved something very glorious and very wonderful for him. A decade and more had gone by since then, and Messire Gilles had found that the cornucopia of Fate held more thistles than roses for him. The wars now were so inglorious; the days of chivalry had gone, never to return. The princes in high places, whom adventurers such as he were destined to serve, had nothing to offer for devoted allegiance save a miserable pittance often withheld.

As a matter of fact, Messire Gilles de Crohin had of late been heartily sick of life. The spirit of adventure that glowed within him was gradually becoming somnolent. He felt that even his blood would become sluggish in time if he dragged on this uneventful existence in the wake of an indolent and dissolute prince.

Then, in the midst of all this dreary dullness, came this ray of sunshine—an adventure such as he, Gilles, had not dreamed of since his boyhood—an adventure proposed to him by the fairest lips in Europe—which would bring all the excitement with it for which he yearned so passionately. No wonder that every objection seemed to him all at once to be futile, every obstacle mere child's play.

And Marguerite, keen and clever, saw at once that he was wavering, just as de Montigny had done yesterday. Long before either of these two men realized themselves that they were yielding, she knew that she had gained her point.

'You gave me your word, Messire,' she said gently.

'And I'll not go back on it, Madame,' he replied.

'Yet you hesitate!'

'Your pardon, Madame,' he rejoined with a smile. 'I was only bewildered.'

'Then you consent?' she exclaimed joyfully.

He shrugged his shoulders with his habitual easy-going good-humour.

'Madame gives me no choice,' he said. 'I cannot go back on my word.'

He bent the knee and kissed the gracious hand which was extended to him. Marguerite's eyes were still bathed in tears.

'If anything that I can do,' reiterated Gilles de Crohin solemnly, 'will retrieve Monseigneur's folly I'll do it.'

'Ah!' she riposted gently. 'But 'tis your solemn oath I want, Messire Gilles.'

'My word of honour, Madame,' he retorted bluntly, 'hath always been found sufficient.'

'Nay! your oath!' she insisted, pleading once more. 'A solemn, binding oath! One,' she added naïvely, 'which, if broken, would land you in hell.' Then, as a sudden scowl gathered on Gilles' brow, she continued in a tone of sadness and self-pity: 'Do not be angered, Messire. I know you for a loyal gentleman and have no doubt that, to you, your word is as good as your oath. But I have been so oft deceived, so oft befooled, that a man's word of honour hath lost its value in mine eyes. Can you blame me, remembering what I am suffering now?'

Gilles' sense of humour saved the situation. His word of honour had of a truth never been doubted, but in face of this sorely outraged woman, he could not take offence.

'What oath shall I take,' he queried, with a good-humoured smile, 'that will satisfy the Queen of Navarre?'

'On your immortal soul, Messire,' she said solemnly; 'on your hopes of salvation; on all that you hold most precious and most dear, swear to me that you will serve me in this matter as I shall direct you, and until I myself do release you from this bond.'

He drew his cross-hilted sword and held it fixed before his eyes. Then he placed his right hand upon the hilt and said with solemn earnestness: 'I swear.'

Marguerite gave a quick sigh of content. She watched Gilles with evident satisfaction as he rose to his feet, sheathed his sword and then stood before her in all his picturesque ruggedness, a perfect presentment of a man, strong, reliable—oh! above all, reliable!!!

'Now, Madame,' said 'Gilles finally, 'will you deign to tell me just what I am to do?'

V

For an hour and more after that, these two—veritable conspirators now—sat together, the Queen of Navarre talking and explaining eagerly and Gilles listening; for of a truth he was still rather bewildered at the proposition and at the part which he would have to play in it. Not that the rôle itself was unfamiliar to him. He had played it often enough, as Marguerite had very shrewdly said, and in far less avowable causes; but never for any length of time. It had been a matter of fighting a duel or meeting an inconvenient interlocutor; a matter of stepping into his Royal master's shoes for half an hour or so, and as oft as not under cover of a dim light. But now he would have to sustain the part for days—weeks, perhaps—never forgetting, always on the alert, always fearful lest a word, a gesture, an inflexion of the voice, should betray him. And he had sworn so solemnly on what he held most sacred and most dear that he would see the business through! Ye gods! but it was a hard proposition for a simple-minded soldier of fortune to tackle!

Marguerite of Navarre, however, was for laughing away every difficulty which stood in her path.

'It has got to be done, Messire!' she said more than once, and with ever-increasing earnestness. 'For the honour of France and of her Royal House.'

She began by giving Gilles more money than he had ever seen before, taking purse after purse of gold from her private coffer and watching him as, puzzled and confused, he stowed these away in the inner pockets of his doublet and breeches.

'I haven't earned all this yet,' he muttered ruefully.

'You will want it,' she rejoined. 'You are a prince, remember, and though you will be travelling incognito, you must live like a prince.'

But the question of clothes was the most difficult one to settle. Gilles de Crohin possessed none save those in which he stood up at this moment: a well-worn doublet of faded kerseymere, a stout jerkin and cloth trunks. His hose showed a multiplicity of darns, and his boots, though stout and solid, were not exactly suited to a lady's drawing-room.

'Time is too short to fashion new ones,' said Marguerite thoughtfully; 'even if this little town did boast of silken materials and Court tailors; which it certainly does not!'

'It certainly doth appear in the light of an insurmountable difficulty,' rejoined Gilles with a hopeful sigh.

'No difficulty is insurmountable, Messire, when the honour of France is at stake,' she retorted with a frown.

'But——'

'What hath Monsieur done with his wardrobe?' asked Marguerite. 'He always travels with trunk-loads of frippery.'

'Monseigneur left all his clothes here and most of his jewellery. I am to convey them to his house in Paris when an opportunity occurs.'

'Very well,' she rejoined firmly; 'we must find what you want among them.'

'But——' he broke in once more, disconcerted at the suggestion.

'But what?'

'The trunks are locked.'

'I'll break them open,' she rejoined simply. 'Have no fear, Messire; I am taking all the responsibility of this affair upon my shoulders.'

'But I cannot strut about in another man's clothes!' protested Gilles dolefully.

'Why not?'

'Because ... because ... parbleu! because they would not fit me!'

Marguerite smiled. Then she threw another admiring glance on Gilles' massive figure.

'My brother is very nearly as tall as you are, Messire, she said,' even though not quite so broad. I have two very skilful seamstresses who will adjust Monsieur's doublets across your splendid shoulders. With his love of slashings and puffings, such alterations are very easily done.'

'But the boots——' protested Gilles again.

'You have the small foot, Messire,' she replied dryly, 'which you inherit from your Valois ancestor.'

'The Lord help me, your Majesty!' he exclaimed piteously. 'You have thought of everything, and I am a puppet in your august hands.'

'Therefore I entreat you not to argue any further,' she retorted gaily, 'or I shall think that you are repenting of your bargain—and of your oath.'

Which suggestion caused Gilles to cease from further protests, even though he did express a hope that Her Majesty's seamstresses would not make gossip all about the town that he—the Sire de Froidmont—was going to walk about in another man's clothes.

'My women never gossip,' said Marguerite dryly, after which she abruptly changed the subject. 'And now tell me,' she said. 'A man like you must have a friend, a comrade or a servant—some one, in fact, who would be faithful and trustworthy. You will want a companion on your journey. Messire, have you such a friend?'

'Aye! that I have,' replied Gilles fervently, his whole face beaming with joy at thought of having his faithful Jehan with him in this mad expedition.

'One who would serve you faithfully?' she continued.

'To the death, your Majesty.'

'And cleverly?' she insisted. 'You will both have to keep your wits about you.'

Gilles smiled. 'Maître Jehan,' he said, 'hath no wits to speak of, Madame; but he hath a heart of gold and muscles of steel. Nature hath forced him to hold his tongue, for he stutters like a clucking hen. He is invaluable for circumventing an inopportune visitor or misunderstanding an imperative command. We have fought side by side these past ten years and have nearly bled to death or been frozen to death together before now. Jehan will do for me what I would do for you, Madame.'

'You are lucky, Messire,' rejoined Marguerite simply, 'to have such a friend. And I,' she added, with an engaging smile,' to have such an one, too. Maître Jehan shall journey to Cambray with you as your serving-man. With his prowess and your own invincible courage and strength, the very thought of failure appears treasonable. Ah, Messire Gilles!' she continued eagerly, 'I beg of you to cast all doubts aside! Have no fear, I entreat you—no fear of failure or of gossip! And, above all, trust me! Trust me, Messire, that whatever happens, I will not leave you in the lurch. Only trust me! Trust me! You shall not suffer through serving me! On the faith of Marguerite of Navarre!'

She gave him her hand again, and through tears of emotion gave him a glance of appreciation and of confidence. Gilles had no more resistance left in him; and as he looked into those lovely eyes which had already played such havoc with men's wills and with men's hearts, he sighed with resignation and with only a transient thought for the morrow. None knew better than the Sire de Froidmont the exact value of promises made by princes or by women. To-day Marguerite of Navarre's clever mind and warm heart were filled with enthusiasm for this new scheme of hers; a week hence, mayhap, she would have thought of something else, and Gilles—as like as not—would indeed be left to bear the brunt of failure.

But these were just the vicissitudes which were wont to attend the career of a soldier of fortune these days. A dazzling prize or a gibbet might await the adventurer at the end of his goal. For the nonce, Gilles had sworn to serve this gracious lady and to redeem the unpardonable folly of a faithless prince, and with a careless shrug of the shoulders he left the future in Dame Fortune's hands.

'I will give you an autograph letter,' resumed Marguerite more quietly after awhile, 'for M. le Baron d'Inchy, governor of Cambray, and one for Maître Julien at the hostelry of "Les Trois Rois." These will serve as your credentials in addition to the safe-conducts which Messire de Montigny delivered to Monsieur. You have those, I hope.'

'Yes, Madame,' replied Gilles. 'Monseigneur left them with me. If your Majesty deigns to remember, they were e'en made out in my name.'

'In the name of Messire Gilles de Crohin, the equerry and of Monseigneur le prince de Froidmont!' she exclaimed gleefully. 'Indeed, I mind it well! You will not even have to change your name, Messire; and the title shall be yours, an' you desire it, when my brother is King of the Netherlands.'

Gilles shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh! a title, Madame...!' he said lightly.

'I know! I know!' she riposted, with the volubility of intense excitement. 'I know your proud device: "Roy ne suys, ne Prince, ne Duc, ne Comte. Je suys Sire de Froide Monte." Ah, Messire Gilles! you were fated to belie that device! Prince de Froidmont—'tis no mean title.'

'I prefer that of Friend of the Queen of Navarre,' he said simply.

'You are that indeed, Messire, and more,' she rejoined solemnly. 'Ah! if my brother were only like you, what glorious destiny would have been his!'

'Our destinies are of our own making, Madame,' he retorted.

'You have started to carve them out for yourself now, Messire Gilles, on the tablets of my memory.'

'Then may God and the Fates favour me!'

'The Fates?' she cried gaily. 'Why, you and I have conquered the Fates, Messire. Will you deny that they are our handmaidens now?'

CHAPTER VI
WHAT MONSEIGNEUR D'INCHY AND MESSIRE GILLES DE
CROHIN MUTUALLY THOUGHT OF ONE ANOTHER

I

And three days later, an' it please you, Messire Gilles presented himself, his safe-conduct and his faithful Jehan at the Porte de Cantimpré.

The safe-conduct being made out in the name of Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont, his equerry, Messire Gilles de Crohin, and his serving-man, the absence of one of the three personages was casually commented on by the Captain of the Guard.

'My equerry hath fallen sick on the way,' explained Gilles airily. 'He lies at a village inn close by and will come as soon as may be.'

It was at once arranged that whenever the equerry did present himself at the gate, Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont was immediately to be apprised of his arrival so that he might at once stand guarantee for the man's identity. Needless to say that no such equerry existed, nor does the Captain of the Guard appear to have worried his head over so small a matter. But, anyway, Gilles now was inside Cambray, the scene of his coming adventure, and I can assure you that on this first occasion—it was late evening then and a cold, drizzling rain was blurring every outline of the picturesque city—Gilles did not stride about the streets with that careless jauntiness which characterized his usual demeanour.

After some searchings and many wanderings through the most unfrequented portions of the city, Messire did finally espy the Rue aux Juifs, at one end of which there dangled on a ricketty iron bracket a half-obliterated sign that still bore the legend 'Les Trois Rois' in black paint on a crimson ground and three dabs of pink paint, surmounted by dabs of yellowish paint, which might still pass muster as kingly faces surmounted by their crowns. Now, if you remember, the Rue aux Juifs in Cambray is a narrow street which runs behind the Place aux Bois, and links the latter with the Porte Notre Dame. Owing to the elaborate corbelling of the old houses on either side, it appeared far narrower in the year 1581 than it does to-day,[[1]] and the hostelry so pretentiously styled 'Les Trois Rois' was of the humblest description.

[[1]] In the spring of 1914.

Gilles was satisfied to find it so. He liked its seclusion and had never been difficile in the matter of his creature comforts. Secrecy and mutual confidence were the greatest desiderata for the moment in the pursuit of his adventure, and he knew enough about the exquisite Queen of Navarre that if any male creature who dwelt within 'Les Trois Rois' had come within the magic circle of her fascination, that man would go through fire and water, torture and hell itself, in order to serve her.

So he knocked boldly at the ricketty front door of the humble hostelry. A young man, thin and pale, wearing a long doublet of dark woollen stuff and a black cap above his scanty yellow hair, opened the door and bade him welcome. He had a lanthorn in his hand and held it high above his head, surveying the stranger with that pathetic air, half-fear, half-entreaty, wherewith the very poor are wont to regard those who might bring about a small measure of change in their misery.

Gilles at once presented the letter which Madame la Reyne de Navarre had given him for his prospective host. The young man glanced at the latter, recognized the signature, and at once his almost cadaverous-looking face became transfigured. His hollow eyes took on a glow of joy, his cheeks assumed a warm hue, his long, bony hands clutched the welcome missive as an idolater might clutch the relic which he worshipped.

There was no doubt that Messire Gilles would be made welcome—and right welcome—in the humble hostelry. Not only would discretion be assured him, but also unswerving devotion, of which indeed he might presently stand in sore need.

'My mother,' stammered the youth, after he had recovered from his primary emotion, 'is bedridden now, alas! but I will do my best to serve you, Messire, and your henchman, to the best of my ability. I will tend you and wait on you, and whatever this humble abode hath to offer is entirely at your disposal. My liege lady commands,' he added, drawing up his spare frame with the air of a devotee in the presence of his hero. 'I will obey her in all things!'

We will not say that Gilles was exactly gratified to hear that the hostess of 'Les Trois Rois' was bedridden and would be unable to attend on him, but it is certain that he was not grieved. With this young enthusiast alone to attend on him and to share the secret of his adventure, he was as secure from untimely discovery as it was possible under the circumstances to be.

II

At eleven o'clock the next morning, Gilles sent word round to Monseigneur the governor of the Cambrésis that he would wait on him within the hour. Together with this message he sent the sealed letter wherein the Queen of Navarre commended her dear brother François, Duc d'Anjou, to the good graces of Monseigneur the governor.

At the hour when the messenger arrived, M. le Comte de Lalain, who was governor of Flanders and one of d'Inchy's closest associates, was closeted with the latter in one of the stately rooms of the Archiepiscopal Palace where M. d'Inchy had taken up his abode after he had dispossessed the Archbishop and taken possession of the city. D'Inchy, obviously nervy and anxious, quickly dismissed the messenger; then he turned to de Lalain and, throwing the Queen's letter across the table to him, he said briefly: 'Well, he has come!'

De Lalain in his turn read the letter through. Then he sighed.

'Yes,' he said. 'He, at any rate, seems determined to carry the adventure through.'

'I hope to God that we have done right,' rejoined d'Inchy. 'The whole thing, now that it is upon us, appears to me more foolish than ever it did before.'

'And there is no drawing back now, unfortunately.'

'The whole affair is in God's hands,' quoth d'Inchy sententiously.

'In the hands of an irresponsible and dissolute prince,' said the other moodily. 'I blame de Montigny for having consented so readily.'

'Then you must blame yourself too, my friend,' retorted d'Inchy dryly. 'You, too, consented, and so did I....'

'I know that well enough! Like yourself, de Montigny and I acted for the best, though I for one could even now with zest strike that Valois Prince in the face for this insult upon our ward.'

But d'Inchy apparently was all for a conciliating attitude and a cheerful view of the situation.

'Do not,' he said lightly, 'let us use grandiloquent words, my dear de Lalain. There is no insult in a man's desire to see the woman whom he is asked to wed. For the time being Jacqueline will hold herself aloof. She will appear little in public, and then only wearing a mask. After a few days, if affairs seem to be shaping to our satisfaction, we can always allow a certain degree of intimacy. Jacqueline is so beautiful that we really run no risk of refusal. And,' he added with a quick sign of finality, 'in any case we had no choice.'

'Alas, no!' rejoined de Lalain ruefully. 'For of a truth I cannot bring myself to believe in Orange as the saviour of the Netherlands. He thinks that he can rally the burghers and the mass of the people to his standard. But I doubt it. And if he fails in his present campaign we shall all fall into a veritable abyss of humiliation and dependence on those abominable Spaniards—far worse than ever before.'

'And all our friends think the same, as you well know, my good de Lalain,' continued d'Inchy firmly. 'An alliance with a prince of the House of France is safer than a submission to the leadership of Orange. We want the help of France; we want her well-trained armies, her capable generals, the weight of her wealth and influence to drive the Spaniards out of our provinces. Elizabeth of England promises much but holds little. She is on the side of Orange. I am on the side of France.'

'So am I, my good d'Inchy,' rejoined de Lalain; 'else I had never consented to the Queen of Navarre's madcap scheme.'

'Nor I,' concluded d'Inchy with the solemn earnestness of political fanaticism. 'So why all these misgivings, my good friend?'

'Was it fair to the girl?' murmured the other almost involuntarily. 'Monsieur is as fickle as he is unprincipled. Had we the right to toy with a woman's heart—a young girl's—our kinswoman——?'

'You wrong Jacqueline by such doubts, my friend. She is not a child nor yet an irresponsible girl. She knows that her person and her fortune are powerful assets in the future of her country. She is a patriot, and will never allow sentiment to overrule her duty.'

Perhaps de Lalain would have liked to continue the argument. Obviously his conscience was smiting him a little now that the curtain had actually rung up on the first act of the foolish adventure. The ill-fame of the Valois prince had preceded him long ago. De Lalain knew—and so did d'Inchy, so did de Montigny—that Monsieur was both profligate and faithless. He, like the others, had entered into a bargain with one whom they could never trust. Was it fair? Was it just? Would God's blessing descend upon the proposed Kingdom of the Netherlands if its foundations rested on so infamous a base? And yet de Lalain, though conscious of that vague feeling of remorse, had no thought of turning back. Even now, as a tall, masked figure appeared under the lintel of the door in the wake of the usher, and then stepped boldly into the room, he made a great effort to control his resentment. Though his hand ached to drag the mask away from the man's face, to try and read him eye to eye, his reason re-asserted itself, re-adjusted his thoughts and his sentiments. 'This,' it whispered insistently, 'this man who has come to Cambray masked and disguised, is a prince of the House of France. If he approve of the beautiful Flemish heiress and consents to take her for wife, the future of the Netherlands is assured, even though he were twenty times as base as he is depicted.'

And reason gained the victory. D'Inchy already had gone a few steps forward in order to greet his exalted visitor. De Lalain composed himself too, even paid an involuntary tribute of admiration to that tall and martial-looking figure which enshrined, so rumour had it, a soul that was both weak and false.

III

And Messire Gilles de Crohin, the penniless soldier of fortune, the mountebank set to play an unworthy part, was greeted by these two proud Flemish nobles with all the respect due to a prince of the House of France. And indeed there was nothing mean or humble about his appearance even though he had come to Cambray with only one man to serve him, and that man a rough and uncouth soldier with a ludicrous stutter which would at once have provoked the gibes of Monseigneur, the governor's servants, but for the fact that Maître Jehan's fists appeared as hard and harder than their heads, and that his temper was so hot that he had already put the first scoffers to flight by the mere rolling of his eyes. He was standing at this precise moment immediately behind his master, and as soon as the usher had withdrawn and the door been closed, he slipped quite unostentatiously into the nearest corner and remained there, with his eyes fixed on Messire like a faithful watch-dog, silent and keen.

The two Flemish lords had also waited until the usher had disappeared; then only did they make obeisance, with all the ceremonious empressment which the presence of a Royal personage demanded.

Let us admit at once that Gilles looked magnificent in Monsieur le Duc d'Anjou's splendid clothes—doublet and trunks of fine satin, slashed and puffed after the latest fashion; hose of Italian silk and short mantle of Genoa velvet, exquisitely embroidered in dull silver and gold, the whole of that sombre bottle-green hue specially affected by Monsieur and a miracle of the dyer's subtle art. He had ruffles at neck and wrist of delicate Mechlin lace, wore a mask with a frill of black lace pendant from it, which effectually hid the whole of his face, and at his side a rapier which obviously hailed from Toledo. Altogether a splendid prince! And it was difficult indeed to credit the rumours which averred that he had undermined his constitution by high living and drinking and a life of profligacy and excess.

He received the greetings of the Flemish lords with just the necessary measure of gracious condescension, and through the slits of his mask he was studying with keen anxiety what might be hidden behind those stolid and stern faces and the frowning glances wherewith two pairs of eyes were steadfastly regarding him.

D'Inchy waited in dutiful respect till Monsieur, Duc d'Anjou, was pleased to be seated; then he said:

'Monseigneur understood, I hope, how it was that we did not present our respects to you in person. Such a ceremony would have set the tongues of our town gossips wagging more furiously than before.'

Already, it seemed that the presence of the stranger inside Cambray had created some comment. In these days, when the Spanish armies swarmed all over the province, when plots and counter-plots were being constantly hatched in favour of one political side or another, strangers were none too welcome inside the city. There was the constant fear of spies or of traitors, of emissaries from Spain or France or England, of treason brewed or brewing, which might end in greater miseries yet for any unfortunate province which was striving for its own independence and the overthrow of Spanish tyranny. Gilles, listening with half an ear to Monseigneur d'Inchy's elaborate compliments, was inwardly marvelling whether spies had not already come upon his track and would upset the Queen of Navarre's plans even before they had come to maturity. He had a curious and exceedingly uncomfortable sensation of unreality, as if these two stern-looking Flemings were not actual personages but puppets moved by an unseen hand for the peopling of his dreams. He answered the elaborate flummeries of the governor with a vague: 'I thank you, Messire.' Then he added a little more coherently: 'I understood everything, believe me, and must again thank you for acceding to my wishes and to those of my sister, the Queen of Navarre.'

'Our one desire, Monseigneur,' continued d'Inchy stiffly, and still speaking very deferentially, 'our one desire is to see the sovereignty of the Netherlands secure in your keeping.'

Gilles roused himself. It was no use and ill policy to boot to allow that feeling of unreality to dominate his mood so utterly. If he let himself drift upon these waves of somnolence he might, with one unguarded word, betray the grave interests which had been committed to his care.

'That is understood, Messire,' he said dryly. 'Messire de Montigny put the whole matter before me and before my sister of Navarre. We both fell in readily with your schemes. As for me, you know my feelings in the matter. I only asked for delay and consideration ere I pledged myself irrevocably to so grave an affair.'

'And we, equally readily, Monseigneur,' asserted de Lalain, 'do place ourselves entirely at your service.'

After which preliminary exchange of compliments, the Flemings were ready to discuss the matter in all its bearings. All the arguments which had been adduced by de Montigny when the proposed marriage was being discussed before the Queen of Navarre, were once more dished up for the benefit of Monsieur. Gilles played his part with as much ease as his want of experience would allow; but he was a soldier and not a courtier, ill-versed too in the art of guarded speeches. He fumed and fretted over all these pourparlers quite as much and more than Monsieur would have done, and once or twice he caught sight through the slits of his mask of certain glances of puzzled wonderment which passed between the two men at a more than usually rough retort which had escaped his lips.

Half an hour drew its weary length along while the discussion proceeded, and it was at the very end of that time that M. le Baron d'Inchy said quite casually:

'Of course, you, Monseigneur, will understand that since you choose to do your wooing under a mask, our ward, Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, Dame de Morchipont, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramèse, will not appear in public either, save also with a mask covering her face.'

Now Madame la Reyne de Navarre had not thought of this eventuality, and indeed if it had truly been Monsieur Duc d'Anjou who had received this ultimatum, he would undoubtedly have then and there turned on his heel and left these mulish Flemings to settle their own affairs as they wished. But Gilles had sworn to see the business through. Left to himself in this difficulty, he was for the moment puzzled, but never tempted to give up the game. The two Flemish lords appeared so determined, and with it all so pleased, with their counter-stroke, that any kind of argument would only have ended either in humiliating acquiescence or in the breaking off of the negotiations then and there. The latter being of course unthinkable, Gilles thought it best to take this part of the adventure as lightly as he had taken the rest.

''Tis hard for a man to woo a maid whose face he is not allowed to see,' he said, by way of protest.

'Oh, Monseigneur is pleased to jest!' was d'Inchy's calm rejoinder. 'It was agreed that you should come to Cambray and see the noble lady who holds in her dainty hand the sovereignty of the Netherlands for her future lord; but, as Messire de Montigny had the honour to tell you, Madame Jacqueline de Broyart is not going to be trotted out for any man's inspection—be he King or Emperor, or Prince—like a filly that is put up for sale.'

'But man——' retorted Gilles, nettled by the Flemish lord's coolness.

'I crave Monseigneur's pardon,' broke in d'Inchy with perfect outward deference; 'but we must remember that Monseigneur also is here for inspection. If Madame Jacqueline refuses the alliance, neither I nor my co-guardian would dream of forcing her choice.'

'That is understood, Messire,' rejoined Gilles coldly. 'And I have set myself the task of wooing the lady with ardour, so as to win her affection as well as her hand.'

'Oh, Monseigneur....' protested the Fleming with a deprecating smile. 'That is hardly the position, is it? You have reserved unto yourself the right to withdraw. Well, we arrogate that same right for our ward.'

'A just arrogation, Messire,' riposted Gilles. 'But why the mask?' he added blandly.

'If Monseigneur will woo Madame definitely and openly,' replied d'Inchy firmly, 'she will not wear a mask either. But then there can be no question of withdrawal if she consents.'

Now, to woo Madame Jacqueline definitely and openly was just the one thing Gilles could not do. So there was the difficulty and there the cunning and subtlety of these Flemish lords, who had very cleverly succeeded in getting Monsieur into a corner and in safeguarding at the same time the pride and dignity of the greatest heiress in Flanders. Gilles would have given all the worlds which he did not possess for the power to consult with Madame la Reyne de Navarre over this new move on the part of the Flemings. But, alas! she was far away now, flying across France after her faithless brother, hoping soon to catch him by the tails of his satin doublet and to drag him back to the feet of the rich heiress whom that unfortunate Gilles was deputed to woo and win for him. And Gilles was left to decide for himself, which he did with a 'Very well, Messire, it shall be as you wish!' and as gracious a nod and bow to these two obstinate men as he could bring himself to perform; for, of a truth, he would gladly have given each a broken head.

Thus the actual discussion of the affair was ended. After that, there were only a few minor details to talk over.

'You two gentlemen,' Gilles said after a slight pause, during which he had been wondering whether it were a princely thing to do to rise and take his leave. 'You two gentlemen are alone in the secret of this enterprise?'

'For the moment, yes,' replied d'Inchy guardedly. 'But others will have to know ... some might even guess. I shall have to explain the matter to my private secretary, and one or two members of my Privy Council have certain rights which we could not disregard.'

'And what about Messire de Montigny?' queried Gilles warily.

'He hath gone to Utrecht to join the Prince of Orange.'

'When doth he return?'

'Not before the summer.'

A short, quick sigh of relief escaped Gilles' lips. At the back of his mind there had always lurked the ever-present fear of one who wilfully deceives his fellow-men—the fear of being found out. In this, Montigny was the greatest, nay! the only danger. With him out of the way, the chances of discovery became remote.

'To every one else, then, Messire,' he continued more firmly, 'I shall pass as the Prince de Froidmont.'

'To every one else, Monseigneur,' replied d'Inchy.

'To Madame Jacqueline de Broyart?'

'Certainly, Monseigneur.'

'She hath no suspicions?'

'None.'

'Doth she know that it is your desire she should become the wife of the Duc d'Anjou ... that she should become my wife, I mean?'

'No, Monseigneur; she does not.'

'Then I have a clear field before me!' he exclaimed gaily.

'A clear field, Monseigneur,' broke in de Lalain firmly, 'for two weeks.'

'Two weeks?' retorted Gilles with a quick frown. 'Why only two weeks?'

'Because,' said the other with solemn earnestness, 'because the Duke of Parma's armies are already swarming over our province. If they should invest Cambray we could not hold out alone. Monseigneur must be ready by then to support us with influence, with men and with money. If you turned your back on us and on the proposed alliance with a Flemish heiress, we should have to look once more to Orange as our future Lord.'

'I understand,' rejoined Gilles dryly. ''Tis an "either—or" that you place before me.'

Then, as d'Inchy remained respectfully silent, M. de Lalain broke in abruptly:

'Think you, Monseigneur, that the people of the Netherlands, after all that they have suffered in intolerance and religious persecution, would accept a Catholic sovereign unless his wife, at least, were of their nation and of their faith?'

A sharp retort hovered on Gilles' lips; already a curt 'Pardi, Messire——' had escaped him, when suddenly he paused, listening. A loud ripple of laughter, merry, sunny, girlish, rang out clearly from beyond the monumental doors, rising in its joyous cadence above the oppressive silence and solemnity of this gloomy Palace and the grave colloquy of Monsieur d'Inchy and his colleagues. Only for a moment, and the laughter died away again, making the silence and solemnity seem more gloomy than before. It seemed to Gilles as if it all were part of that same dream, that it was really intangible and non-existent, just like these sober seigneurs, like himself, like the whole situation which had landed him—Gilles de Crohin—into the midst of this mad adventure.

He threw back his head and laughed in hearty echo. The whole humour of the situation suddenly struck him with the full force of its irresistible appeal. Life had been so dull, so drab, so uneventful of late! Here was romance and excitement and gaiety; a beautiful maid—Gilles had become suddenly convinced that she was beautiful—some blows; some knocks; a master to serve; a beautiful, sorrowing Queen to console; spurs to be won and a fortune to be made!

'And, by Heaven, Messire!' he exclaimed lightly, 'The God of Love shall favour me. Your ward is exquisite and I am very susceptible. What are two weeks? 'Tis but two seconds a man requires for losing his heart to a beautiful wench. And if the fickle god fails me,' he added with a careless shrug of the shoulders, 'well, where's the harm? After this—this romantic episode, shall we say?—Madame Jacqueline will either be Duchesse d'Anjou et d'Alençon, a happy and worshipped bride, or the Prince de Froidmont will disappear from her ken as unobtrusively as he came. And you, Messeigneurs,' he concluded lightly, 'will have to offer the sovereignty of the Netherlands to one who is worthier than I.'

Neither d'Inchy nor de Lalain appeared to have anything to say after that. They were both looking moody—even forbidding—for the moment, though they bowed their heads in humble respect before this prince whose light-heartedness jarred upon their gravity.

And here the matter ended for the nonce. Gilles took leave of his stiff-necked hosts and returned to 'Les Trois Rois,' having declared most solemnly that he must have time to prepare himself for so strange a wooing. A masked wench; think on it! It changed the whole aspect of the situation! A respite of four days was, however, all that was respectfully but firmly granted to him for this preparation, and Messire Gilles spent the next few hours in trying to devise some means whereby he could outwit the Flemish lords and catch sight of Madame Jacqueline ere he formally set out to woo her. Of a truth, the dull-witted and stodgy Flemings whom Monsieur affected to despise, had not much to learn in the matter of finesse and diplomacy from the wily Valois! This counter-stroke on their part was a real slap-in-the-face to the arrogant prince who was condescending to an alliance, of which every other reigning house in Europe would have been proud.

CHAPTER VII
WHY MADAME JACQUELINE WAS SO LATE IN GETTING TO BED

I

Old Nicolle, restless and cross, was fidgeting about the room, fingering with fussy inconsequence the beautiful clothes which her mistress had taken off half an hour ago preparatory to going to bed—clothes of great value and of vast beauty, which had cost more money to acquire than good Nicolle had ever handled in all her life. There was the beautiful gown which Madame had worn this evening at supper, fashioned of black satin and all slashed with white and embroidered with pearls. There was the underdress of rich crimson silk, worked with gold and silver braid; there were the stockings of crimson silk, the high-pattened shoes of velvet, the delicately wrought fan, the gloves of fine chamois skin, the wide collarette edged with priceless lace. There was also the hideous monstrosity called the farthingale—huge hoops constructed of whalebone and of iron which, with the no less abominable corset of wood and steel, was intended to beautify and to refine the outline of the female figure and only succeeded in making it look ludicrous and ungainly. There were, in fact, the numberless and costly accessories which go to the completion of a wealthy lady's toilet.

Madame had divested herself of them all and had allowed Nicolle to wrap a woollen petticoat round her slender hips and to throw a shawl over her shoulders. Then, with her fair hair hanging in heavy masses down her back, she had curled herself up in the high-backed chair beside the open window—the open window, an it please you! and the evening, though mild, still one of early March! Old Nicolle had mumbled and grumbled. It was ten o' the clock and long past bedtime. For awhile she had idled away the hour by fingering the exquisite satin of the gown which lay in all its rich glory upon the carved dowry chest. Nicolle loved all these things. She loved to see her young mistress decked out in all the finery which could possibly be heaped up on a girlish and slender body. She never thought the silks and satins heavy when Jacqueline wore them; she never thought the farthingale unsightly when Jacqueline's dainty bust and shoulders emerged above it like the handle of a huge bell.

But gradually her patience wore out. She was sleepy, was poor old Nicolle! And Madame still sat squatting in the tall chair by the open window, doing nothing apparently save to gaze over the courtyard wall to the distance beyond, where the graceful steeple of St. Géry stood outlined like delicate lace-work against the evening sky.

''Tis time Madame got to bed,' reiterated the old woman for the twentieth time. 'The cathedral tower hath chimed the quarter now. Whoever heard of young people not being abed at this hour! And Madame sitting there,' she added, muttering to herself, 'not clothed enough to look decent!'

Jacqueline de Broyart looked round to old Nicolle with amusement dancing in her merry blue eyes.

'Not decent?' she exclaimed with a laugh. 'Why, my dear Colle, nobody sees me but you!'

'People passing across the courtyard might catch sight of Madame,' said Nicolle crossly.

'People?' retorted Jacqueline gaily. 'What people?'

'Monseigneur had company to-night.'

'They all went away an hour ago.'

'Then there are the varlets and maids——'

'E'en so,' rejoined Jacqueline lightly, 'my attire, meseems, is not lacking in modesty. I am muffled up to my nose in a shawl and—— Oh!' she added with a quick sigh of impatience, 'I am so comfortable in this soft woollen petticoat. I feel like a human being in it and not like a cathedral bell. How I wish my guardian would not insist on my wearing all these modish clothes from Paris! I was so much more comfortable when I could don what I most fancied.'

'Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy,' said Nicolle sententiously, 'knows what is due to your rank, Madame, and to your wealth.'

'Oh! a murrain upon my rank and upon my wealth!' cried the young girl hotly. 'My dear mother rendered me a great disservice when she bare me to this world. She should have deputed some simple, comfortable soul for the work, who could have let me roam freely about the town when I liked, run about the streets barefooted, with a short woollen kirtle tied round my waist and my hair flying loose about my shoulders. I could have been so happy as a humble burgher's daughter or a peasant wench. I do so loathe all the stiffness and the ceremony and the starched ruffles and high-heeled shoes. What I want is to be free—free!—Oh!——'

And Jacqueline de Broyart stretched out her arms and sighed again, half-longingly, half-impatiently.

'You want to be free, Madame,' muttered old Nicolle through her toothless gums, 'so that you might go and meet that masked gallant who has been haunting the street with his music of late. You never used to sigh like this after freedom and ugly gowns before he appeared upon the scene.'

'Don't scold, old Colle!' pleaded the girl softly. And now her arms were stretched towards the old waiting-woman.

Nicolle resisted the blandishment. She was really cross just now. She turned her back resolutely upon the lovely pleader, avoiding to look into those luminous blue eyes, which had so oft been compared by amorous swains to the wild hyacinths that grow in the woods above Marcoing.

'Come and kiss me, Colle,' whispered the young charmer, 'I feel so lonely somehow to-night. I feel as if—as if——'

And the young voice broke in a quaint little gasp which was almost like a sob.

In a moment Nicolle—both forgiving and repentant—was kneeling beside the high-backed chair, and with loving, wrinkled hands holding a delicate lace handkerchief, she wiped the tears which had gathered on Jacqueline's long, dark lashes.

'My precious lamb, my dove, my little cabbage!' she murmured lovingly. 'What ails thee? Why dost thou cry? Surely, my pigeon, thou hast no cause to be tearful. All the world is at thy feet; every one loves thee, and M. de Landas—surely the finest gentleman that ever walked the earth!—simply worships the ground thy little foot treads on. And—and'—added the old woman pitiably—'thy old Colle would allow herself to be cut into a thousand pieces if it would please thee.'

Whereupon Jacqueline broke into a sudden, gay and rippling laugh, even though the tears still glistened on her lashes.

'I shouldn't at all enjoy,' she said lightly, 'seeing my dear old Colle cut into a thousand pieces.'

'Then what is it, my beloved?'

Jacqueline made no reply. For a few seconds she remained quite silent, her eyes fixed into nothingness above old Colle's head. One would almost have thought that she was listening to something which the old woman could not hear, for the expression on her face was curiously tense, with eyes glowing and lips parted, while the poise of her girlish figure was almost rigidly still. The flame of the wax candles in the tall sconces flickered gently in the draught, for the casement-window was wide open and a soft breeze blew in from the west.

'Come, my cabbage,' pleaded Nicolle as she struggled painfully to her feet. 'Come and let thy old Colle put thee to bed. Thou must be tired after that long supper party and listening to so much talking and music. And to-morrow yet another banquet awaits thee. Monseigneur hath already desired thy presence——'

'I don't want to go to another banquet to-morrow, Colle,' sighed the young girl dolefully. 'And I am sick of company and of scrapings and bowings and kissing of hands—stupid flummery wherewith men regale me because I am rich and because they think that I am a brainless nincompoop. I would far rather have supper quietly in my room every night—quite alone——'

But old Colle evidently thought that she knew better than that. 'Heu! heu!' she muttered with a shrug of the shoulders, accompanied by a knowing wink. 'What chance wouldst thou have then of seeing M. de Landas?'

'I hardly can speak with M. de Landas during those interminable banquets,' rejoined Jacqueline with a sigh. 'My guardian or else M. de Lalain always seem in the way now whenever he tries to come nigh me.'

'I'll warrant though that M. de Landas knows how to circumvent Monseigneur,' riposted the old woman slyly. Like so many of her sex who have had little or no romance in a dull and monotonous life, there was nothing that old Colle enjoyed more than to help forward a love intrigue or a love adventure. M. de Landas she had, as it were, taken under her special protection. He was very handsome and liberal with money, and in his love-making he had all the ardour of his Southern blood, all of which attributes vastly appealed to old Colle. The fact that Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy did not altogether favour the young man's suit—especially of late—lent additional zest to Nicolle's championship of his claims.

'Even so,' said Jacqueline with sudden irrelevance, 'there are moments when one likes to be alone. There is so much to think about—to dream of——'

'I know, I know,' murmured the old woman crossly. 'Thy desire is to sit here half the evening now by the open window, and catch a deathly ague while listening to that impudent minstrel who dares to serenade so great a lady.'

She went on muttering and grumbling and fidgeting about the room, unmindful of the fact that at her words Jacqueline had suddenly jumped to her feet; eyes blazing, small fists clenched, cheeks crimson, she suddenly faced the garrulous old woman.

'Nicolle, be silent!' she commanded. 'At once! Dost hear?'

'Silent? Silent?' grumbled the woman. 'I have been silent quite long enough, and if Monseigneur were to hear of these doings 'tis old Nicolle who would get the blame. As for M. de Landas, I do verily believe that he would run his sword right through the body of the rogue for his impudence! I know.... I know,' she added, with a tone of spite in her gruff voice. 'But let me tell thee that if that rascally singer dares to raise his voice again to-night——'

She paused, a little frightened at the fierce wrath which literally blazed out of her mistress's eyes.

'Well?' said Jacqueline peremptorily, but in a very husky voice. 'Why dost thou not finish? What will happen if the minstrel, whose singing hath given me exquisite joy these three nights past, were to raise his heavenly voice again?'

'Pierre will make it unpleasant for him, that's all!' replied the old woman curtly.

'Pierre?'

'Yes; Pierre! M. de Landas' serving-man. I told him to be on the look-out, outside the postern gate, and—well!—Pierre has a strong fist and a heavy staff, and...'

In a moment Jacqueline was by Nicolle's side. She seized the old woman by the wrist so that poor Colle cried out with pain, and it was as the very living image of a goddess of wrath that the young girl now confronted her terrified serving-maid.

'Thou hast dared to do that, Nicolle?' she demanded in a choked and quivering voice. 'Thou wicked, interfering old hag! I hate thee!' she went on remorselessly, not heeding the looks of terror and of abject repentance wherewith Colle received this floodgate of vituperation. 'I hate thee, dost hear? And if Pierre doth but dare to lay hands on that exquisite singer I'll ask M. de Landas to have him flogged—yes, flogged! And I'll never wish to see thy face again—thou wicked, wicked Colle!'

Mastered by her own emotion and her passionate resentment, Jacqueline sank back into a chair, her voice broken with sobs, and tears of genuine rage streaming down her cheeks. Nicolle, quite bewildered, had stood perfectly still, paralysed in fact, whilst this storm of wrathful indignation burst over her devoted head. In spite of her terror and of her remorse, there had lingered round her wrinkled lips a line or two of mulish obstinacy. The matter of the unknown singer, who had not only ventured to serenade the great and noble Dame Jacqueline, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramèse and of several other places, just as if she were some common burgher's wench with a none too spotless reputation, had not ended with a song or two: no! the malapert had actually been impudent enough last night to scale the courtyard wall and to stand for over half an hour just below Madame's window (how he knew which was Madame's window Satan, his accomplice, alone could tell!) singing away to the accompaniment of a twangy lute, which she—Nicolle—for one, could never abide.

Fortunately, on that occasion Madame Jacqueline had been both modest and discreet. She had kept well within the room and even retired into the alcove, well out of sight of that abominable rascal; but she would not allow Colle to close the window and had been very angry indeed when the old woman with a few gruff and peremptory words had presently sent the malapert away.

That was yesterday. And now this outburst of rage! It was unbelievable! Madame Jacqueline of a truth was hot-tempered and passionate—how could she help being otherwise, seeing that she had been indulged and adulated ever since, poor mite of three, she had lost both father and mother and had been under the guardianship of Monseigneur d'Inchy and of half a dozen other gentlemen. Never, however, had Colle seen her quite like this, and for such a worthless cause! Colle could scarce credit her eyes and ears. And alas! there was no mistaking the flood of heartrending weeping which followed. Jacqueline sat huddled up in her chair, her face buried in her hands, sobbing and weeping as if her heart would break.

II

All the obstinacy in the worthy old soul melted away in an instant, giving place to heartrending remorse. She fell on her knees, she took the small feet of her adored mistress in her hands and kissed them and wept over them and cried and lamented tearfully.

'Lord God, what have I done?' she called out from the depths of her misery. 'My dove, my cabbage! Look at me—look at thy old Colle! Dost not know that I would far sooner bite my tongue out than say one word that would offend thee? My lamb, wilt not look at Colle?—I vow—I swear that I'll die here on the spot at thy feet, if thou'lt not smile on me!'

Gradually as the old woman wept and pleaded, Jacqueline became more calm. The sobs no longer shook her shoulders, but she still kept her face hidden in her hands. A few minutes went by. Colle had buried her old head in the young girl's lap, and after a while Jacqueline, regally condescending to forgive, allowed her hand to fall on the bowed head of the repentant sinner.

'I'll only forgive thee, Colle,' she said with solemn earnestness, 'if Pierre doth not lay a finger upon that heavenly singer—but, if he does——'

Colle struggled to her feet as quickly as her stiff joints would allow.

'I'll go and find the varlet myself,' she said fiercely, ready to betray with cowardly baseness the confederate of awhile ago, now that she had propitiated the mistress whom she adored. 'M. de Landas hath not yet left the Palace, and if Pierre dares but raise his hand against that mal—hem!—against the noble singer whom thou dost honour with thine attention, well! he'll have to reckon with old Colle; that is all!'

With Jacqueline de Broyart—who in herself appeared the very embodiment of spring, so full of youth, of grace and of vitality was she—sunshine and storm came in rapid succession over her moods, just as they do over the skies when the year is young. Already her eyes, bathed in tears of rage awhile ago, were glistening with pleasure, and her lips, which had pouted and stormed, were parted in a smile.

'Go, Colle!' she said eagerly. 'Go at once, ere it be too late and that fool Pierre——'

The words died upon her lips. The next instant she had jumped down from her chair and run to the window. From some distance down the street there had come, suddenly wafted upon the wings of the wind, the sound of a voice singing the well-known verses of Messire de Ronsard:

'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait desclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vostre pareil.'[[1]]

[[1]] 'Mignonne, come see if the rose
That this morning did unclose
Her purple robe to the sun
Hath not ere this evening lost
Of those purple petals most
And the tint with your tint one.'
(Translation by Mr. Percy Allen. Songs of Old France.)

Jacqueline knelt upon the window-seat, but she could see nothing, so she turned back piteously to murmur to old Colle: 'Oh! if I could only see him!'

The old woman, after the experience of the past few minutes, was ready to do anything, however abject, to further her mistress' desire.

'Put on thy mask, my pigeon,' she said, 'and then lean well out of the window; but not too far, for fear M. de Landas should happen to be passing in the courtyard and should see thee with thy hair down. No, no!' added the old hypocrite obsequiously, 'there is no harm in listening to so sweet a singer. I'll get thy purse, too, and thou canst throw him a coin or two. No doubt the poor fellow is down-at-heels and only sings to earn his supper.'

And humble, fussy, still snivelling, Nicolle shuffled across the room, found the satin mask and brought it to her mistress. Jacqueline fixed it over her face; then she leaned as far out of the window as she dared to do without fear of falling out. And, if M. de Landas saw her, why! he would be so gladdened at the sight that he would have no ear for a mere street musician, whilst she—Jacqueline—was just now in so soft a mood that if M. de Landas happened to scale the wall to her casement-window—as he had more than once threatened to do—she would return his kisses in a way that she had never done before.

For she was deeply in love with M. de Landas, had been for years. She had plighted her troth to him when she was a mere child, and she loved him—oh yes! she loved him very, very much, only...

III

There was the width of the courtyard and the tall wall between Jacqueline and the street where stood the singer whom she so longed to see. She had caught sight of him yesterday when, to Nicolle's horror, he had boldly scaled the wall and then had lingered for nigh on half an hour beneath her window, singing one merry song after another, till her young heart had been filled with a new joy, the cause of which she herself could not quite comprehend.

She had watched him unseen, fearful lest some of the serving-men should see him and drive him away. Fortunately Chance had been all in favour of her new romance. M. de Landas was on duty at the Forts that night; her guardian was still closeted with some other grave seigneurs, and the serving-men were no doubt too busy to trouble about a harmless minstrel. As for the wenches about the place, they had stood about in the doorways, listening with delight at the impassioned songs and gaping in admiration at the splendid bearing of the unknown cavalier.

Thus the singer had stood in the courtyard for some considerable time, his martial figure silhouetted against the clear, moonlit sky, his voice rising and falling in perfect cadence to the accompaniment of a soft-toned lute, whilst Jacqueline, hidden within the shadow of the window-embrasure, listened spellbound, her whole youth, her ardent, loving soul exultant at this romance which was taking birth at her feet.

And now he had come back, and the very night seemed to bid him welcome. It was still quite early in March, yet the air was soft as spring. All day the birds had been twittering under the eaves, and on the west wind had come wafted gently the scent of budding almond blossom and of the life-giving sap in the branches of the trees.

The stately city with its towers and steeples and cupolas lay bathed in the light of the honey-coloured moon. Far away on the right, the elegant church of Saint Géry up on the Mont-des-Boeufs seemed like a bar of silver which attached old Cambray to the star-studded firmament above, and around it were grouped the tall steeples of St. Martin, St. Waast and St. Aubert, with the fine hexagon of Martin et Martine which crowned the Town Hall; whilst, dominating this forest of perfect and rich architecture, was the mass of the cathedral close by, with its tall pointed steeple, its flying buttresses, its numberless delicate pinnacles picked out as by a fairy hand against the background of deep azure.

But Jacqueline de Broyart had for the nonce no eyes for all that beauty. What cared she if the wintry moon outlined all these lovely heights with delicate lines of silver? What cared she if the shadows of stately edifices appeared full of a golden glow by contrast with the cold blue of the lights? Her eyes were fixed, not on the tower of St. Géry nor on the steeple of Notre Dame: they rested upon that high and cruel wall which hid the unknown singer from her sight.

'Mignonne!' he sang out gaily. 'Allons voir la rose——'

'Oh!' sighed Jacqueline with passionate longing. 'If I only could——!'

And her fancy went soaring into a world of romance—a world far away from the sordid strifes, the political intrigues, the quarrels of to-day; a world wherein men were all handsome and brave and women were all free to grant them their hand to kiss, to listen to their songs, to reward their prowess, to receive their homage unfettered by convention—a world, in fact, such as Messire de Froissart had chronicled and of which Messire Villon had sung so exquisitely.

Then suddenly Jacqueline's dreams were rudely interrupted, as was also the song of the unseen minstrel. Loud voices were raised and there was a clash which made Jacqueline's very heart turn cold in her bosom.

'Colle!' she cried excitedly.

But Colle had shuffled out of the room some little while ago, in search of Pierre, no doubt, whom evidently she had failed to find. And out there behind that cruel wall the rough hands of that abominable varlet were being laid on the precious person of the unsuspecting minstrel. Jacqueline felt literally paralysed both with terror and with wrath. Colle had spoken of Pierre's stout arm and still stouter stick, but there was also the possibility of M. de Landas himself being about, and then—oh, then! ... Ye heavens above! anything might happen! ... Oh! the wicked, wicked old woman and that execrable Pierre! ... and ... and of course M. de Landas' jealousy was sometimes terrifying!

'God in Heaven!' sighed Jacqueline. 'I entreat Thee to protect him!'

The noise of the scuffle in the street became louder and louder. There were cries of rage as well as of pain. Blows were evidently raining freely—on whom? My God, on whom? Then, from further up the street, came the sound of running footsteps as well as the stern voice of the night watchmen hurrying to the scene. Jacqueline would have bartered some years of her life to see what was going on the other side of the wall. Only a minute or two had gone by: to the young girl it had seemed like hours of suspense. And now these people all rushing along, no doubt in order to give a hand to Pierre—to fall on the unarmed minstrel—to lay hands upon him—to belabour him with sticks—to wound or hurt him—to——

Jacqueline uttered a loud cry of horror. It was the echo of one of terror, of pain and of rage which came from the other side of the wall. The next moment a dark mass appeared over the top of the wall, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. To Jacqueline's straining eyes it seemed like the body of a man which, for the space of a brief second, seemed to hover in mid air and then fell with a dull thud upon the paving-stones of the courtyard below.

Jacqueline closed her eyes. She felt sick and faint. To her ears now came the sound of loud groans and vigorous curses. And then—oh, then!—loud laughter and the last bar of the interrupted song—a sound indeed which caused her at once to open her eyes again; whereupon she, too, could have laughed and sung for joy. The inert mass still lay in a heap at the foot of the wall; Jacqueline could vaguely discern its outline in the gloom, whilst up on the top of the wall, astride, hatless, lute in hand, sat the masked minstrel with his head turned gazing toward her window.

She clapped her hands with glee, and he, with a loud cry of 'Mignonne!' swung himself down from the wall and ran across the courtyard until he came to a halt just beneath her window, and even in the dim light of this wintry moon Jacqueline thought that she could see his eyes glowing through the holes in the mask.

It was all so joyous, so gay, so romantic; so different—ah! so very, very different—to the dreary monotony of Jacqueline's daily existence! This masked and unknown minstrel! His daring, his prowess, aye! his very impudence, which laughed at high walls and defied an army of varlets! There was Pierre moaning and groaning, disarmed and helpless, having been tossed over the wall just as if he were a bale of cumbersome goods! Serve him right well, too, for having dared to measure his valour against that of so proud a cavalier! Pierre was not hurt—oh, Jacqueline was quite sure that he was not hurt! Nothing, nothing whatever, was going to be wrong on this lovely, glorious evening! No! Pierre would soon be healed of his wounds; but it was ludicrous to see him stretched out just there, where he thought he could lay the noble singer low!

'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose,' sang the mysterious minstrel; and Jacqueline's young heart, which was filled with the joy of romance, the exquisite rapture of ideals, suddenly ached with a passionate longing for—for what? She did not know. She had had so many things in life: riches, beauty, adulation, aye! and the love of a man whom she loved in return. But now it seemed to her as if, in spite of all that, in spite of M. de Landas and his love, she had really lacked something all the time—something that was both undefinable and mystic and yet was intensely and vividly real, something that would fill her life, that would satisfy her soul and gladden her heart, in a way that M. de Landas' love, his passionate kisses, had never succeeded in doing hitherto.

And somehow all this longing, all this thirst for a still-unknown happiness, seemed personified in the singer with the tall, broad stature and the mellow voice; it was embodied in the honey-coloured moon, in the glints of silver and gold upon the steeples of Cambray, in the scent of the spring and the murmurs of the breeze. Jacqueline pressed her hands against her heart. She was so happy that she could have cried.

Beside her on the window-sill stood a tall vase fashioned of Dutch clay. It was filled with tall-stemmed Madonna lilies, which had been produced at great cost in the hot-houses belonging to her own estate in Hainault. Their powerful scent had filled the room with its fragrance. Without thought or hesitation, Jacqueline suddenly pulled the sheaf out of the vase and gathered the flowers in her arms. The tender, juicy stems were wet and she took her embroidered handkerchief out of her pocket and wrapped it round them; then she flung the whole sheaf of lilies out of the window and watched to see them fall, bruised and sweet-smelling, at the minstrel's feet.

Then, half-ashamed, laughing a little hysterically, but thoroughly happy and excited, she drew quickly back into the room and hastily closed the casement.

IV

When, ten minutes or so later, Nicolle came back, shame-faced, remorseful and not a little frightened, she was surprised and delighted to find her young mistress sitting quite composedly in a high-backed chair in the centre of the room, the window closed, and the lady herself quite eager to go to bed.

'Thou hast been gone a long time, Colle,' said the young girl carelessly. 'Where hast thou been?'

Old Colle sighed with relief. The Lord be praised! Madame had evidently seen and heard nothing of that vulgar scuffle which had ended in such disaster for poor Pierre, and in such a triumph for the impudent rascal who had since disappeared just as quickly as he came.

'I just went round to see that those wenches were all abed and that their lights were safely out,' replied the old woman with brazen hypocrisy.

'And didst speak to Pierre on the way?' queried Jacqueline, who had assumed the quaintest possible air of simple ingenuousness.

'Aye!' replied the old woman dryly. 'I spoke to Pierre.'

'What did he say?'

'Nothing of importance. We talked of to-morrow's banquet.'

'To-morrow's banquet?'

'Do not feign surprise, my pigeon,' rejoined old Colle, who was decidedly out of humour. 'I even asked thee to-night, before taking off thy gown, if thou wouldst wear that one or another on the morrow.'

'I remember,' replied Jacqueline with a yawn, 'I said that I did not care what I wore, as I hated banquets, and company and bowings and——'

'But Monseigneur said that the banquet to-morrow would be for a special occasion.'

'When did he say that?'

'A moment or two ago—to Pierre.'

'And what will the special occasion be to-morrow?'

Nicolle looked mysterious.

'Maybe,' she said, 'that it is not altogether unconnected with Monseigneur de Landas.'

'Why with him?' asked Jacqueline eagerly.

'Oh! I am only putting two and two together, my cabbage,' replied old Colle with a sly wink. 'There is talk of distinguished guests in Cambray, of betrothals, and ... and ...

'Betrothals?'

'Why, yes. Thou art nearly twenty, my pigeon, and Monseigneur, thy guardian, will have to make up his mind that thou wilt marry sooner or later. I always thought that he did favour Monseigneur de Landas, until——'

'Until what?' queried Jacqueline impatiently.

'There are so many rumours in the air,' replied Colle sententiously. 'Some talk of the Duc d'Anjou, who is own brother to the King of France.'

Jacqueline made a little moue of disdain.

'Oh! Monsieur!' she said carelessly.

'A very great and noble prince, my pigeon.'

'I am tired of great and noble princes.'

'But Monseigneur, the Duc d'Anjou...'

'Is one of the many, I suppose, who want my fortune, my family connexions, the Sovereignty of the Netherlands. Bah!' she added with an impatient sigh. 'They sicken me!'

'A great lady, my cabbage,' said Nicolle solemnly, 'cannot follow the dictates of her heart like a common wench.'

'Why!' exclaimed Jacqueline. 'Methought thou wast all for M. de Landas!'

'So I am, my pigeon, so I am!' rejoined the old woman. 'He is a very distinguished gentleman, who loves thee ardently. But if there's one who is own brother to the King of France....' And old Colle gave an unctuous sigh when she spoke the exalted name.

'Bah!' retorted Jacqueline with a careless shrug of the shoulders. 'There are others too! And no one can force me into a marriage whilst my heart is pledged to M. de Landas.'

'No, no! Thank God for that!' assented Colle piously. 'As for the others ... well! their name is legion ... some of them will be at the banquet to-morrow.... There is the Marquis de Hancourt, a fine-looking youth, and that horrid German prince whom I cannot abide! The English lord hath gone away, so they say, broken-hearted at thy refusal; but there's the Spanish duke, whose name I cannot remember, and Don José, own son to the Emperor.... As for that stranger——' she added with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

'The stranger?' queried Jacqueline lazily. 'What stranger?

'Well, I don't know much about him. But Pierre, feeling crestfallen, did admit that Monseigneur chided him severely for having shown a want of respect to a gentleman who ought to have known better than to pretend to be a street musician.'

But Jacqueline appeared all of a sudden to have lost interest in the conversation. 'Ah!' she said with well-assumed indifference, 'then the street musician of awhile ago was a gentleman in disguise?'

'Aye! so Pierre said—the fool!' quoth old Colle unblushingly. 'Monseigneur was very angry with him when he heard of the altercation with the singer, threatened to speak of the matter to M. de Landas and have Pierre flogged or dismissed for his interference. Then he hinted that the stranger, far from being a street musician, was a foreign seigneur of high degree, even if of scanty fortune.'

'Oh!' commented Jacqueline carelessly.

'And he e'en ordered Pierre to go and apologize most humbly to the stranger, who it seems is lodging in a very poor hostelry known as "Les Trois Rois," just close to the Porte Notre Dame.'

Jacqueline ostentatiously smothered a yawn.

'I think I'll go to bed now, Colle,' she said.

But Colle's tongue, once loosened, could not so easily be checked.

'Town gossip,' she went on with great volubility, 'has been busy with that stranger for the past two days. 'Tis said that he is styled Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont; though what a prince should be doing in a shabby hostel in that squalid quarter of the city I, for one, do not know—nor why he should be going about masked and cloaked through the city in the guise of a vagabond.'

'Perhaps the vagabond is no prince after all,' suggested Jacqueline.

'That's what I say,' asserted Colle triumphantly. 'And that's what Pierre thought until Monseigneur told him that if he did not go at once and offer his humble apologies he surely would get a flogging, seeing that the Prince de Froidmont would actually be a guest at the banquet to-morrow, and would of a certainty complain to M. de Landas.'

'A guest at the banquet!' exclaimed Jacqueline involuntarily.'

'Aye!' assented Colle. 'Didst ever hear the like! But he must be a distinguished seigneur for all that, or Monseigneur would not bid him come.'

'No, I suppose not,' said Jacqueline with perfect indifference. 'The Prince de Froidmont?' she added with a little yawn. 'Is that his name?'

'So the town gossips say,' replied Colle, who was busy just then in wrapping the bed-gown round her young mistress's shoulders.

'And he comes to the banquet to-morrow?'

'So Monseigneur said to Pierre.'

Jacqueline said nothing more for the moment, appeared to have lost all interest in the masked musician and in Pierre's misdeeds. She stretched out her arms lazily while vigorous old Colle picked her up as if she were a baby and carried her—as she was wont to do every night—to her bed.

She laid her down upon the soft feather mattress and spread the fine coverlets over her. The alcove wherein stood the monumental bedstead was in semi-darkness, for the light from the wax candles in the sconces about the room failed to penetrate into the recess. But that semi-darkness was restful, and for awhile Jacqueline lay back against the pillows, with eyes closed, in a state of that complete well-being which is one of the monopolies of youth. Nicolle, thinking that Madame would be dropping off to sleep, made a movement to go; but Jacqueline's small white hand had hold of the old woman's bony fingers, and old Colle, abjectly happy at feeling the pressure, remained quite still, waiting and watching, gazing with doglike devotion on the lovely face—lovely in repose as it was when the light of gaiety and roguishness danced in the blue eyes.

After a few minutes of this silent beatitude, Jacqueline opened her eyes and said in a dreamy voice, half-asleep:

'Tell me, Colle, which is my prettiest gown?'

And Nicolle—herself more than half-way to the land of Nod—roused herself in order to reply: 'The white one with the pearls, my pigeon.'

She was sufficiently awake to feel quite happy at the thought that Madame was suddenly taking an interest in her clothes, and continued eagerly: 'It hath an underdress of that lovely new green colour which hath become the mode of late, and all embroidered with silver. Nothing more beautiful hath ever been fashioned by tailors' art, and in it Madame looks just like an exquisite white lily, with the delicate green stem below.'

'Well then, Colle,' rejoined Jacqueline dreamily, 'to-morrow evening I will wear my white satin gown with the pearls and the underdress of green and silver, and Mathurine must study a new way of doing my hair with the pointed coif which they say is so modish now in France. I will wear my stockings of crimson silk and my velvet shoes, and round my neck I'll wear the ropes of pearls which my dear mother did bequeath to me; in my ears I'll have the emerald earrings, and I'll wear the emerald ring upon my finger. I wish I had not that ugly mole upon my left cheek-bone, for then I could have had one of those tiny patches of black taffeta which are said to be so becoming to the complexion....'

She paused, and added with quaint wistfulness: 'Think you, Colle, that I shall look handsome?'

'As lovely as a picture, my dear one,' said Nicolle with enthusiasm. 'As exquisite as a lily; fit only to be the bride of a King.'

Jacqueline gave a quick sigh of satisfaction, after which she allowed Colle to give her a kiss and to bid her a final 'good night.'

And even as she fell gradually into the delicious and dreamless sleep of youth, her lips murmured softly: 'I wonder!'

CHAPTER VIII
WHAT BECAME OF THE LILIES

I

Gilles had spent four days at the hostelry of 'Les Trois Rois,' and here he would have liked to remain indefinitely and to continue the sentimental romance so happily begun beneath the casement-windows of the Archiepiscopal Palace. With the light-heartedness peculiar to most soldiers of fortune, he had during those four days succeeded in putting his rôle out of his mind. Though he had not yet caught sight of Madame's face at her window, he quite thought that he would do so in time, and already he had received more than one indication that his singing was not unwelcome. The casement had been deliberately thrown open when he had scaled the courtyard wall, and had resumed his song immediately beneath the window which he had ascertained belonged to Madame's private apartment. He had felt, even though he did not actually see, that some one was listening to him from up there, for once he had perceived a shadow upon the casement curtain, and once a hand, small and delicate, had rested upon the window-sill. Gilles would have continued this wooing—aye! perhaps have brought it to a happy conclusion, he thought—without being forced to assume another personality than his own: a thing which became more and more abhorrent to Messire Gilles' temper, now that the time for starting the masquerade in earnest was drawing nigh.

'We could make ourselves very happy here, honest Jehan,' he had said to the faithful companion of his many adventures. 'Waited on by that silent and zealous youth, who of a truth looks like the very ghost of silence and discretion. With judicious economy, the money which a gracious Queen hath placed in our hands would last us a year. It seems a pity to fritter it all away in a few weeks by playing a rôle which is detestable and unworthy.'

'B-b-b-but——' stammered old Jehan.

'You are quite right,' broke in Gilles gravely. 'Your argument is very sound. The money, my friend, was given unto us in order to play a certain rôle, and that rôle we must now play whether we like it or not, on pain of being branded as vagabonds and thieves.'

'V-v-v-very——' stammered poor Jehan.

'As you say,' remarked Gilles dryly, 'I have always found you of good counsel, my friend. Very likely—that is what you would say, is it not?—very likely, unless we played our parts as Madame la Reyne de Navarre did direct, Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy would discover the fraud and have us both hanged for our pains. And if the hangman did happen to miss us, Madame Marguerite would certainly see to it that a gibbet was ready for us somewhere in France. So for this once, I think, mine honest Jehan, we must take it that honesty will be the best policy.'

'O-o-o-only th-th-th-that——'

'Quite so!' assented Gilles, 'only that in this case we cannot contrive to remain honest without being dishonest, which is a proposition that doth gravely disturb my mind.'

'Th-th-th-the o-o-o-only——'

'Hold your tongue, friend Jehan,' broke in Gilles impatiently. 'Verily, you talk a great deal too much!'

II

And now, at the very close of the fourth day, Messire Gilles made noisy irruption into the tiny room which he occupied in the hostelry of 'Les Trois Rois.' Maître Jehan—after the stormy episode outside the postern gate wherein he had taken part—was in the room, waiting for his master.

Gilles was in the rarest of good humour. As soon as he had closed the door behind him, he threw his plumed toque and the lute upon the table and, sitting down on the narrow paillasse which was his bed, he fell to contemplating a bunch of white lilies which he had in his hand. The stems of these lilies were carefully wrapped in an embroidered handkerchief, but they hung their bruised, if still fragrant, heads in a very doleful manner.

Gilles laughed softly to himself. Then he held the flowers out at arm's length and called out gaily to Jehan:

'Congratulate me, honest Jehan!' he said. 'The first act of our adventurous comedy is over. The curtain has rung down on a veritable triumph! I have received a token! ... I have captured the first bastion in the citadel of the fair one's heart! Give me a week, and I hold the entire fortress for and on behalf of Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, our august master!'

'Th-th-th-then you h-h-h-have——'

'No, I have not seen her, my good man. All that fine fight outside the walls, the complete discomfiture of our assailants, my perilous position inside the courtyard, from whence a reinforcement of varlets might easily have put me to flight, did not win for me even a glimpse of the lady. But her window was wide open this time, and I could see her shadow flitting past the casement. Then suddenly these lilies were flung at me. They were crushed and bruised against the pavement as they fell; but they are a token, friend Jehan, and you cannot deny it! Madame Jacqueline's heart is already touched by the song of the unknown troubadour, and he hath but to present himself before her to be graciously received.'

'B-b-b-b-but——' said Jehan with grave solemnity.

'That's just it!' broke in Gilles with a laugh. 'You have a way, my friend, of hitting the right nail on the head. As you say, the four days' respite which have been granted to us have now expired, and we have not yet seen the future Duchesse d'Anjou face to face.'

'N-n-n-not yet! Th-th-th-that——'

'That is the trouble, I grant you. There is that infernal masquerade; and of a truth, I am more convinced than ever that the reason why those noble mynheers are so determined that Madame shall not show her face ere I have irrevocably committed myself—I—that is, the Duc d'Anjou—that is—— Oh, my God!' he exclaimed. 'What a tangle!! Well, as I was saying.... By the way, what was I saying just now?'

'Th-th-th-that——'

'Of course! You incorrigible chatterbox! I would have explained my meaning before now if you had not talked nineteen to the dozen all the time! I mean that I have completely changed my mind, and that I have become convinced that Madame Jacqueline is as ugly as sin, else those wily Dutchmen would not be so anxious to cover up her face.'

'Th-th-th-therefore——' asserted Jehan stoutly.

'Therefore, my good man, good fortune is in our debt. She did not favour me with a sight of the lady ere I meet her in my official capacity. But Madame Jacqueline hath given me a token: she is prepared to love me, and I am still in the dark as to whether she squints or is pitted with pock-marks. A terrible position for any man to be in!' he sighed dolefully, 'even though he is out a-courting for a friend.'

'B-b-b-but——'

'You mean well, my friend,' quoth Gilles, who fell to contemplating the bunch of faded lilies with a rueful expression of face. 'You mean well, but you talk too much, and thus I am thrown on mine own resources for counsel in an emergency. As for arguments! Why, you would argue the devil's horns from off his head! Still,' he added, as he finally flung the lilies away from him with a careless gesture of indifference, 'still, in spite of what you say, I must stick to my bargain. Those mulish mynheers will not grant us any further delay, and to-morrow I am pledged to appear at the governor's banquet—yes, even I!—Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, own brother to the King of France, and you as my faithful servitor.'

'N-n-n-not a m-m-minute t-t-too soon,' Maître Jehan managed to blurt out quickly whilst Gilles had paused for breath.

'Ah! there you are wrong, my friend,' retorted Gilles. 'For my taste, the dénouement is coming along at far too rapid a pace. To-morrow, already our troubles will begin—peace will know us no more. I for one will never rightly know who I am; nor will I know who it is who will know who I am not. Oh, my Lord!' he added in mock despair, as he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands. 'My head will split ere I have done! Tell me, Jehan, who I shall be to-morrow.'

'T-t-t-to-morrow,' stammered Jehan with painful earnestness, 'you—you—you——you will b-b-b-b-be——'

'Own brother to His Majesty the King of France,' said Gilles, 'and as great blackguard as ever disgraced a Royal house. To Monseigneur the governor, and maybe also to some of his friends, I shall be a Royal prince. To others, and notably to Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, I shall be the Prince de Froidmont—an insignificant and penniless seigneur who only dares approach the far-famed heiress under cover of a mask, having fallen desperately in love with her. Ah, Jehan! Jehan!' he added with mock solemnity, 'thou art of a truth a lucky devil! Thou canst keep thine own name, thine own rank, even thine own ludicrous stutter: whereas I,—what shall I be? A mime! A buffoon! And what's more, a fraudulent varlet, pledged to deceive an innocent wench into the belief that her future lord is both sentimental and amorous and can sing the love ditties writ by Messire de Ronsard with passable tunefulness.... Ye gods, Jehan, hast ever heard Monsieur Duc d'Anjou—the real one, I mean—sing?'

'N-n-n-no!' objected Jehan in pious horror, for he did not like to hear so exalted a personage derided.

'Then hast ever heard the barn-door rooster calling to his favourite hen?'

'S-s-s-s-sometimes!'

'Well!' quoth Gilles lightly, 'so have I. And I prefer the barn-door rooster! And now to bed, friend Jehan,' he added as he jumped to his feet. 'To-morrow is the great day! Didst take my letter to the governor's palace?'

'I d-d-d-did.'

'And didst see Monseigneur the governor himself?'

Jehan nodded affirmatively.

'Gave him my letter?'

Another nod from Jehan.

'Did he look pleased?'

A shrug of the shoulders this time.

'Said he would be honoured to see Monseigneur le Duc d'Alençon et d'Anjou at the banquet to-morrow?'

Once again a nod.

'Then to bed, chatterbox!' concluded Gilles gaily, 'for to-morrow I begin my career as a low, deceitful hound, fit only for the gibbet, which I dare swear is already prepared for me!'

III

Jehan helped his master to undress. He pulled off the heavy boots and laid aside the cloth jerkin, the kerseymere trunks and worsted hose. Then, when Messire Gilles lay stretched out upon the hard paillasse, honest Jehan bade him a quiet good night and went off carrying the guttering candle. For one candle had to do duty for two customers, or even at times for three, at the hostel of 'Les Trois Rois.' These were not days of luxurious caravanserai: eight square feet of floor space, a tiny leaded window, a straw paillasse, perhaps a table and a rickety chair, made up the sum total of a furnished bedroom, if destined for a person of quality. Men like Maître Jehan had to be content with the bare boards and a horse-blanket outside their master's door, or behind a wooden partition set up inside the latter's room.

Jehan went off, then, with the candle, and Gilles de Crohin remained in almost total darkness, for the light of the moon failed to penetrate through the narrow aperture which went by the name of window. For a long time Messire Gilles lay motionless, staring into the gloom. Vague pictures seemed to flit before his gaze: the unknown girl whom he was pledged to woo appeared and disappeared before him, now walking across his line of vision with stately dignity, now dancing a wild rigadoon like some unruly country wench; but always, and with irritating persistence, wearing a mask which he longed to drag away from her face. Then he saw pictures of fair Marguerite of Navarre, imperious yet appealing, and of his own cross-hilted sword, upon the sacred emblem of which he had pledged himself to an ugly deception; Monsieur Duc d'Anjou, indolent and vapid, dressed in that ludicrous green satin suit, came and mocked him through the darkness.

Gilles de Crohin, wearied with all these phantasmagoria, began tossing restlessly upon his hard bed, and as he did so he flung his arm out over the coverlet and his hand came in rough contact with the floor. And there, close to his touch, was something soft and velvety, the drooping, fading lilies which an unknown lady of high degree had flung out to him and which he had so carelessly tossed aside. His hand closed tightly upon the flowers, crushing the last spark of life out of the fragrant blossoms, and even as he did so—quite unconsciously and mechanically—an unpleasant pang of remorse shot right through his heart. Was this unconscious act of his a presage of the cruel rôle which he had set out to play? Would the young soul of an innocent girl droop and wither beneath his careless touch?

Very gently now Gilles, turning on his side, gathered the flowers together and drew them towards him. Something of their fragrance still lingered in the bruised petals. Gilles got out of bed. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, or perhaps something of the radiance of the moonlit night had penetrated into the narrow room. Gilles could see his way about, and he remembered that in the further corner there had stood a pitcher filled with fresh water. With infinite precaution he unwound the handkerchief from around the stems and then dropped the flowers one by one into the pitcher. After awhile he picked up the handkerchief. It was nothing now but a damp and sodden little ball, but it smelt sweetly of lilies and of lavender. Gilles marvelled if the lady's initials and coronet were embroidered in the-corner. He felt with his fingers in order to make sure; but he was too inexperienced in such matters to arrive at any definite conclusion, so with a sudden impulse which he would not have cared to analyse, he searched the darkness for his doublet, and having found it he thrust the damp little rag into its breast-pocket.

Then, with a laugh at his own folly and a light shrug of the shoulders, he went back to bed. This time he fell at once into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER IX
HOW MESSIRE GILLES WAS REMINDED OF A DREAM

I

In Maître C. Calviac's treatise on the manners and tone of good society, which he published in the year 1560[[1]] for the guidance of those who desired to frequent the company of the Great, we are told that 'when we enter the presence of exalted personages, we must walk on the tips of our toes, incline our body and make a profound obeisance.' And further, Maître Calviac goes on to explain the many different modes of saluting, which we might adopt for the occasion: 'Firstly,' he says, 'we can uncover our right hand, with it lower our hat by stretching the arm down along our right thigh and leaving our left hand free. Secondly, we can regard humbly and reverentially the exalted one whom we desire to salute. Thirdly, we can lower our gaze and advance our right foot whilst drawing the left one slightly back. We can also take off the glove from our right hand, incline our body, and after nearly touching the ground with our hand, carry our fingers to our lips, as if in the act of imprinting a kiss upon their tips.'

[[1]] La Civile Honnêteté, par C. Calviac. Paris 1560. in-12.

Finally, our accomplished monitor tells us that the embrace is yet another form of salute which cannot, however, be practised save between persons of equal rank or those who are bound to one another by ties of kinship or of especial friendship. In that case, the most civil manner of thus saluting is for each to place the right hand on the top of the other's shoulder and the left hand just below, and then present the left cheek one to the other, without touching or actually kissing the same.

We may take it that Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy, governor of the province of Cambrésis, being an exalted personage himself and closely connected by family ties with Madame Jacqueline de Broyart—whose guardian and protector he was—did adopt the latter mode of salutation when, at eight o'clock precisely of the following evening, he presented himself before his young ward for the purpose of conducting her to the State dining-room, where a banquet in honour of several distinguished guests was already spread. We may take it, I say, that Monseigneur the governor did take off his right-hand glove, advance his right foot and walk on the tips of his toes; that he did place one hand on Madame Jacqueline's shoulder, whilst she did the same to him, and that they each presented the left cheek to one another in accordance with the laws of propriety laid down by Maître Calviac.

Monseigneur was accompanied by a young man whose manners and demeanour were even more punctilious and ceremonious than those of his companion. The airs and graces wherewith he advanced in order to greet Madame Jacqueline would have done honour to a Grand Master at the Court of the Spanish King. And, indeed, many did aver that M. le Marquis de Landas had Spanish blood in his veins, and that, though he was a Netherlander by birth, and a Protestant by practise, he was a Spaniard and a Papist by tradition—which fact did not tend to make him popular in the Cambrésis, where the armies of Alexander Farnesse, Duke of Parma, were already over-running the villages, rumour being rife that they were about to threaten Cambray.

'Twas well said of M. le Marquis de Landas that none knew better than he how to turn a compliment. Perhaps that same strain of Spanish blood in him had given him glibness of tongue and the languorous look in the eyes which had rendered many a favoured lady proud. He was known to be of exalted lineage but not endowed with fortune, connected too with some of the noblest families both in Flanders and in Spain, and had lately come to the Cambrésis as aide-de-camp to his kinsman, the baron d'Inchy, who had promptly given him command of the garrison of Cambray.

So much for facts that were known. But there were rumours and conjectures, not altogether false, it seems, that M. de Landas was a suitor for Madame Jacqueline's hand—one of the many, of course; for her hand was sought far and wide. She would bring a rich dowry as her marriage portion to any man who was lucky enough to win her, and also the influence of her Flemish kinsmen, who had already boldly asserted that the Sovereignty of the Netherlands would go with the hand of Madame Jacqueline de Broyart.

Many favoured the French alliance; others preferred the Netherlander with the strain of quasi-royal Spanish blood in him. The Marquis de Landas would prove a useful link between the Spaniards and the Netherlanders, would know how to smoothe many difficulties, calm the obstinate temperament of the Dutch and gloss over the tyranny of their masters. He had suave manners and a persuasive tongue, useful in politics. The ladies of Cambray at once adored him: his olive skin, his dark hair which clustered in heavy waves above the well-cut oval of his face, his large brown, velvety eyes, were all destined to please the fair sex. He wore a silky moustache and the small, pointed beard on his chin, and his cheeks were of a blue-black colour all down where the barber shaved him every day. Whene'er he gazed on a young and pretty woman his eyes would assume an amorous expression and his lips were curved and of a bright cherry-red, like those of a girl.

II

Between Jacqueline and her young kinsman there had sprung just that kind of love which is made up of passion on the one side and innocent devotion on the other. At first it had flourished almost unopposed—ignored, probably, as being of no importance. Monseigneur d'Inchy's plans for his ward had been both immature and vague, for, until a year or so ago Jacqueline had a brother living—Jan, a couple of years older than herself, who was the owner of the rich Netherlands duchies and on the point of taking unto himself a wife. But, with the death of that brother, Jacqueline at once became a personage of vast importance. She had remained the sole possessor of the princely heritage and thereby a pawn in the political game in which the Sovereignty of the Netherlands was the priceless guerdon.

Monseigneur d'Inchy's plans began to mature: ineligible and obscure suitors were quickly given the cold shoulder and an imaginary barrier was drawn around Madame Jacqueline into the inner circle of which only scions of kingly or great princely houses were allowed to enter. Jacqueline's dowry rendered her a fit mate even for a King.

Even M. de Landas, more highly connected than most, backed too by his Royal Spanish kindred, found that his position as an approved suitor had suddenly become gravely imperilled. Monseigneur d'Inchy no longer looked on him as an altogether desirable mate for the richest heiress in the Netherlands, now that one of the sons of the Emperor, a reigning German duke, and the brother of the King of France, were among those who had entered the lists for her favours.

But, as is nearly always the case in such matters, the boy and girl affection ripened, with this growing opposition, into something more ardent and more passionate. M. de Landas, who hitherto had dallied with his pretty cousin just to the extent that suited his wayward fancy, suddenly realized that he was very deeply enamoured of her; jealousy did the rest, transforming transient sentiment into impetuous and exacting fervour.

As for Jacqueline, though she was no longer a mere child, she was totally inexperienced and unversed in the knowledge of human hearts—not excepting her own. She loved de Landas dearly, had loved him ever since he first began to speak of love to her. It is so difficult for a girl, as yet untouched by searing passion, to distinguish between sentimental affection and the love which fills a life. Landas whispered amorous, tender, flattering words in her ear, had fine, flashing eyes which, with their glance of bold admiration, were wont to bring the warm blood to her cheeks. He had a way with him, in fact, which quickly swept her off her feet in the whirlpool of his infatuation, long before she had learned that there were other streams whereon she could have launched her barque of life, with a greater certainty of happiness.

Her heart was touched by his ardour, even though her senses were not fully awakened yet; but she yielded to his caresses with a girlish surrender of self, not realizing that the thrill of pleasure which she felt was as ephemeral as it was shallow. She admired him for his elegant manners, which he had acquired at the Spanish Court, for they stood out in brilliant contrast to the more uncouth Flemish ways; whilst his admiration for her was so unbounded that, despite herself, the young girl felt enraptured by his glowing looks.

To-night she knew that she was beautiful, and that consciousness lent her a quaint air of dignity and self-possession. An unwonted excitement which she could not account for caused her eyes to shine like stars through the slits of her mask. De Landas could only gaze in rapt wonderment at the vision of radiant youth and loveliness which stood before him in the person of Jacqueline de Broyart.

'You are more adorable to-night than ever, my beloved,' he contrived to whisper to her behind Monseigneur d'Inchy's back. 'And I am thankful that Monseigneur's orders have decreed that so much beauty shall remain hidden from unworthy eyes.'

Monseigneur, it seems, just caught these last few words, but mistook their exact meaning. 'All the ladies, my dear de Landas,' he said somewhat tartly, 'who belong to our circle will appear masked at all future public functions until I myself do rescind this order.'

'I was not complaining, Messire,' retorted de Landas dryly. 'On the contrary, I, as a devoted friend, have reason to rejoice at the order, seeing that several strangers will be at your banquet this night, and it were certainly not seemly for ladies of exalted rank to appear unmasked before them.'

He paused awhile, noting with pleasure that his bold glance had brought a glow to Jacqueline's delicate throat and chin. Then he murmured softly:

''Tis only when the strangers have departed that we, who have the privilege of intimacy, can call on the ladies to unmask.'

'Even you, my dear de Landas,' broke in d'Inchy curtly, 'must be content to wait until I decide to grant you special favours. Shall we go below, Madame?' he added, turning to Jacqueline. 'The banquet is spread for nine o'clock.'

Jacqueline, who had scarce uttered a word since the gentlemen entered the room, appeared almost as if she were waking from a trance. Her eyes had a vague, expectant look in them which delighted de Landas, for his vanity at once interpreted that look as one caused by his presence and his own fascination. But now that she encountered her guardian's cold, quizzical glance, the young girl pulled herself together, laughed lightly and said with a careless shrug of her pretty shoulders:

'Nay, then, Monseigneur; 'twill not be my fault if we are late, for I've been dressed this past half-hour, and oh!' she added with a mock sigh of weariness, 'Ye gods! How bored I have been, seeing that I detest all these modish Parisian clothes almost as much as I do a mask, and have chafed bitterly at having to don them.'

'You would not have been bored, Madame,' riposted de Landas with elaborate gallantry, 'had you but glanced once or twice into your mirror, for then you would have been regaled with a sight which, despite the cruel mask, will set every man's heart beating with joy to-night!'

She received his formal compliment more carelessly than was her wont, and he, quick to note every shade of indifference or warmth in her demeanour, frowned with vexation, felt a curious, gnawing pang of jealousy assail him. Jacqueline was so young, so adulated, so very, very beautiful! This was not the first time of late that he had asked himself whether he could hope to enchain her lasting affection, as he had done her girlish fancy ... and had found no satisfactory answer to the bitterly searching question. But she, equally quick to note his moods, quite a little in awe of his outbursts of jealousy, which she had learned to dread, threw him a glance which soon turned his moodiness into wild exultation. After which, Jacqueline turned to Nicolle, who was standing by, gazing on her young mistress in rapt adoration.

'Give me my fan and gloves, dear Colle,' she said.

And when Colle had given her these things, she put on her gloves and, holding her fan in one hand and the edge of her satin skirt with the other, she made a low curtsey before her guardian, looking shy and demure in every line of her young figure, even though the mask hid the expression of her face.

'Does my appearance,' she asked, 'meet with Monseigneur's approval?'

The answer was so obvious that M. d'Inchy—who was somewhat nervy and irritable this evening—said nothing but a sharp, 'Come, Jacqueline!' Whereupon she placed her hand upon his left arm, and without glancing again in her lover's direction, she walked sedately across the room.

III

The dining hall on the floor below was brilliantly lighted for the occasion. At one end of it three tables had been laid for eighty-two guests; they were spread with fine linen and laden with silver dishes and cut glass.

In the centre of the room the company was already assembled: gentlemen and ladies whom Monseigneur, governor of Cambray and the Cambrésis, desired to honour and to entertain. They had entered the room in accordance with their rank, those of humble degree first—one or two of the more important burghers of the town and their wives, members of the municipal council and mayors of the various guilds. The gentlemen of quality followed next, for it was necessary, in accordance with usage, that persons of lower rank should be present, in order to receive those who stood above them in station.

It would be a laborious task to enumerate all the personages of exalted rank who filed into the stately hall, one after another, in a veritably brilliant and endless procession. The Magistrate—elected by the Governor—was there as a matter of course, so was the Provost of the City, and one or two of the Sheriffs. Naturally, the absence of the Archbishop and of the higher clergy detracted somewhat from the magnificence of the pageant, but Monseigneur d'Inchy had taken possession of the city, the province and the Palace, and the Archbishop was now an exile in his own diocese. On the other hand, the Peers and Seigneurs of the Province were well represented: we know that Monseigneur de Prémont was there, as well as Monseigneur d'Audencourt and Monseigneur d'Esne and many other wealthy and distinguished gentlemen and their ladies.

Most of the ladies wore masks, as did many of the men. This mode had lately become very general in Paris, and the larger provincial towns, who desired to be in the fashion, were never slow in adopting those which hailed from the French capital. The custom had its origin in the inordinate vanity of the time—vanity amounting to a vice—and which hath never been equalled in any other epoch of history. Women and men too were so vain of their complexions and spent so much upon its care, used so many cosmetics, pastes and other beautifiers, that, having accomplished a veritable work of art upon their faces, they were loth to expose it to the inclemencies of the weather or the fumes of tallow candles and steaming food. Hence the masks at first, especially out of doors and during meals. Afterwards, they became an attribute of good society. Ladies of rank and fashion wore them when strangers were present or when at a ball they did not desire to dance. To remove a mask at the end of a meal or before a dance was a sign of familiarity or of gracious condescension: to wear one became a sign of exalted rank, of high connexions and of aloofness from the commoner herd of mankind. Whereupon those of humbler degree promptly followed suit.

IV

When M. le Baron d'Inchy entered the dining hall, having Madame Jacqueline de Broyart on his arm and followed by M. le Marquis de Landas, the whole company was assembled in order to greet the host.

Jacqueline's entry was hailed with an audible murmur of admiration and a noisy frou-frou of silks and satins, as the men bowed to the ground and the ladies' skirts swept the matting of the floor. The murmur of admiration increased in boldness as the young girl went round the company in order to welcome her friends.

And, indeed, Jacqueline de Broyart fully deserved that admiration. As you know, Messire Rembrandt painted her a year or so later in the very dress in which she appeared this night—a dress all of shimmering white satin and pearls, save for the peep of delicate green and silver afforded by the under-dress, and the dark crimson of her velvet shoes and silk stockings. The steel corset encased her young figure like a breastplate, coming to a deep point well below the natural waist, whilst round her hips the huge monstrosity of the farthingale hid effectually all the natural grace of her movements. In Rembrandt's picture we see the dainty face, round and fresh as a flower, with the nose slightly tip-tilted, the short upper lip and full, curved mouth; we also see the eyes, large and blue, beneath the straight brow—eyes which had nothing of the usually vapid expression of those that are blue—eyes which, even in the picture, seem to dance with merriment and with joy, and to which the tiny brown mole, artfully placed by nature upon the left cheek-bone, lent an additional air of roguishness and of youth.

To-night, her girlish figure was distorted by hoops of steel, but even these abominations of fashion could not mar the charm of her personality. Her figure looked like an unwieldy bell, but above the corset her shoulders and her young breasts shone like ivory set in a frame of delicate lace; her blue eyes sparkled with unwonted excitement, and beneath the flickering light of innumerable wax candles her hair had gleams of coppery gold.

But, above all, there was in Jacqueline de Broyart the subtle and evanescent charm of extreme youth and that delicious quality of innocence and of dependence which makes such an irresistible appeal to the impressionable hearts of men. Just now, she was feeling peculiarly happy and exhilarated, and, childlike, being happy herself she was prodigal of smiles: the small element of romance which had so unaccountably entered into her life with the advent of the mysterious singer had somehow made the whole world seem gay and bright in a way which de Landas' passionate and exacting love had never succeeded in doing. It had dissipated the pall of boredom and ceremonious monotony which was as foreign to Jacqueline's buoyant nature as was the corselet to her lissom figure. The light of mischief and frolic danced in her eyes, even though at times, for a moment or two, de Landas, who observed her with the keenness and persistence of a jealous lover, would detect in her manner a certain softness and languor which made her appear more alluring, more tantalizing perhaps, then she had ever been.

As she entered the room, she gave a quick and comprehensive glance on the assembled company.

'Tell me, Monseigneur,' she whispered in her guardian's ear, 'has the stranger arrived?'

'The stranger?' retorted d'Inchy. 'What stranger?'

'Pardi! Monsieur le Prince de Froidmont,' she said. 'Who else?'

'Oh!' replied d'Inchy with well-assumed indifference, 'the Prince de Froidmont has certainly arrived before now. He is not a person of great consequence. Why should you be interested in him, my dear Jacqueline?'

To this Jacqueline made no answer, looked down her nose very demurely, so that only her blue-veined lids could be seen through the slits of her mask. She drew up her slim figure to its full height, looked tall and graceful, too, despite that hideous farthingale. Friends crowded round her and round Monseigneur the governor, and she was kept busy acknowledging many greetings and much fulsome flattery. M. le Marquis de Landas never swerved from her side. He, too, wore a mask, but his was a short one which left the mouth and chin free, and all the while that other men—young ones especially—almost fought for a look or a smile from the beautiful heiress, his slender hand was perpetually stroking and tugging at his moustache—a sure sign that his nerves were somewhat on edge.

V

Monseigneur d'Inchy left his ward for a moment or two in the midst of all her friends and admirers and drew Monseigneur de Lalain into a secluded portion of the room.