"It was all in the way of my ancient and honorable trade to have no small traffic with pretty women and the friends of pretty women and the parents of pretty women. And it was this part of my trade which put the idea into my head which prompted me to write to you, friend Peyrolles, and which persuaded me to uproot myself from my comfortable house and my responsive doxies, and jog all the way from Madrid to Paris."

The sense of what he had sacrificed in making the journey seemed suddenly to gall him, for he glared ferociously at Peyrolles, and said, sharply: "Here have I been talking myself dry while you sit mumchance. Tell me some tale for a change. Why in the name of the ancient devil did Nevers's widow marry Gonzague?"

Peyrolles laughed feebly. "Love, I suppose."

aesop waved the suggestion away. "Don't talk like a fool. I expect old Caylus made her. He was a grim old chip, after my own heart, and our widow had no friends. Oh yes; I expect daddy Caylus made her marry Gonzague. What a joke!--what an exquisite joke!"

Peyrolles replied, with attempted dignity: "You didn't travel all the way from Madrid to talk about my master's marriage, I suppose."

In a moment aesop's manner became ferocious again. Again he thrust forward his seamed, malicious face, and again the yellow mask drew back from it. "You are right, I did not. I came because I am tired of Spain, because I l.u.s.t for Paris, because I desire to enter the service of his Highness Prince Louis de Gonzague, to whom I am about to render a very great service."

Peyrolles looked at him thoughtfully, the yellow mask wrinkled with dubiety. "Are you serious about this service?" he asked. "Can you really perform what your letter seemed to promise?"

"I should not have travelled all this way if I did not know what I was about," aesop growled. "I think it matters little if I have lost Lagardere if I have found the daughter of Nevers."

Peyrolles was thoroughly interested, and leaned eagerly across the table.

"Then you think you have found her?"

aesop grinned at him maliciously. "As good as found her. I have found a girl who may be--come, let's put a bold face on it and say must be--Nevers's daughter. I told you so much in my letter."

Peyrolles now drew back again with a cautious look on his face as he answered, cautiously: "My master, Prince Gonzague, must be satisfied.

Where is this girl?"

aesop continued: "Here. I found her in Madrid, the dancing-girl of a band of gypsies. She is the right age. The girl is clever, she is comely, her hair is of the Nevers shade, her color of the Nevers tint. She is, by good-fortune, still chaste, for when I first began to think of this scheme the minx was little more than a child, and the gypsies, who were willing to do my bidding, kept her clean for my need. Oh, she has been well prepared, I promise you! She has been taught to believe that she was stolen from her parents in her babyhood, and will meet any fable half-way. She will make a most presentable heiress to the gentleman we killed at Caylus--"

Peyrolles agitated his yellow hands deprecatingly. He did not like the revival of unpleasant memories. "My good friend!" he protested.

aesop eyed him with disdain. "Well, we did kill him, didn't we? You don't want to pretend that he's alive now, after that jab in the back your master gave him fifteen years ago?"

Peyrolles wriggled on his chair in an agony of discomfort. "Hush, for Heaven's sake! Don't talk like that!"

aesop slapped the table till the gla.s.ses rang. "I'll talk as I please."

Peyrolles saw it was useless to argue with the hunchback, and submitted.

"Yes, yes; but let bygones be bygones. About this girl?"

aesop resumed his narrative. "I sent her and her tribe Franceward from Madrid. I didn't accompany them, for I'm not fond of companionship; but I told them to wait me here, and here they are. What place could be more excellent? All sorts of vagabonds come hither from all parts of the world at fair-time. How natural that your admirable master should amuse his leisure by visiting the fair, and in so diverting himself be struck by a beautiful gypsy girl's resemblance to the features of his dear dead friend! It is all a romance, friend Peyrolles, and a very good romance.

And I, aesop, made it."

The hunchback struck an att.i.tude as he spoke, and strove to twist his evil countenance into a look of inspiration.

Peyrolles was all eagerness now. "Let me see the girl," he pleaded.

aesop shook his head. "By-and-by. It is understood that if Gonzague accepts the girl as Nevers's child he takes me into his service in Paris.

Eh?"

Peyrolles nodded. "That is understood."

aesop yawned on the conclusion of the bargain. "Curse me if I see why he wants the child when he has got the mother."

Peyrolles again neared, and spoke with a lowered voice: "I can be frank with you, master aesop?"

"It's the best plan," aesop growled.

XII

FLORA

Peyrolles prepared to be frank. He put up his hand, and whispered behind it cautiously: "The married life of the Prince de Gonzague and the widow of Nevers has not been ideally happy."

aesop grinned at him in derision. "You surprise me!" he commented, ironically.

Peyrolles went on: "The marriage is only a marriage in name. What arguments succeeded in persuading so young a widow to marry again so soon I do not, of course, know." He paused for a moment and frowned a little, for aesop, though saying nothing, was lolling out his tongue at him mockingly. Then he went on, with a somewhat ruffled manner: "At all events, whatever the arguments were, they succeeded, and the d.u.c.h.ess de Nevers became the Princess de Gonzague. After the ceremony the Princess de Gonzague told her husband that she lived only in the hope of recovering her child, and that she would kill herself if she were not left in peace."

He paused for a moment. aesop spurred him on: "Well, go on, go on."

Peyrolles cleared his throat. Being frank was neither habitual nor pleasant. "As the princess had absolute control of the wealth of her dead husband, the Duke de Nevers, and as she promised to allow my master the use of her fortune as long as he--"

Again he paused, and aesop interpolated: "Left her in peace."

Peyrolles accepted the suggestion. "Exactly--my master, who is a perfect gentleman, accepted the situation. Since that day they seldom meet, seldom speak. The princess always wears mourning--"

aesop shivered. "Cheerful spouse."

Peyrolles went on: "While the Prince de Gonzague lives a bright life, and sets the mode in wit, dress, vice--in every way the perfect gentleman, and now the favorite companion and friend of his melancholy majesty, whose natural sadness at the loss of the great cardinal he does his best to alleviate."

aesop laughed mockingly as Peyrolles mouthed his approvals. "Lucky groom.

But if he can spend the money, why does he want the girl?"

Peyrolles answered, promptly: "To please the princess, and prove himself the devoted husband."

aesop was persistent: "What is the real reason?"

Peyrolles, with a grimace, again consented to be frank: "As Mademoiselle de Nevers is not proved to be dead, the law a.s.sumes her to be alive, and it is as the guardian of this impalpable young person that my dear master handles the revenues of Nevers. If she were certainly dead, my master would inherit."

aesop still required information. "Then why the devil does he want to prove that she lives?"

There was again a touch of condescension in Peyrolles's manner: "You are not so keen as you think, good aesop. Mademoiselle de Nevers, recovered, restored to her mother's arms, the recognized heiress of so much wealth, might seem to be a very lucky young woman. But even lucky young women are not immortal."

aesop chuckled. "Oh, oh, oh! If the lost-and-found young lady were to die soon after her recovery the good Louis de Gonzague would inherit without further question. I fear my little gypsy is not promised a long life."

Peyrolles smiled sourly. "Let me see your little gypsy."

aesop hesitated for a moment. It evidently went against his grain to oblige Peyrolles--or, for that matter, any man, in anything; but in this instance to oblige served his own turn. He rose, and, pa.s.sing the door of the Inn, crossed the s.p.a.ce of common land to where the caravan stood, a deserted monument of green and red.