"When?" asked the king, eagerly.

"To-morrow," Lagardere answered. Then he hastened to add: "But he makes his conditions."

Louis frowned as Lagardere mentioned the word "conditions," and asked: "What reward does he want?"

Lagardere smiled at the question. "You do not know Lagardere. He asks for a safe-conduct for himself."

The king agreed. "He shall have it."

But Lagardere had more to ask. "He also wants four invitations for the ball your majesty gives at the Palais Royal to-morrow night."

Perhaps Lagardere showed himself something of a courtier in this speech.

The great Richelieu had bequeathed to the little Louis his splendid dwelling-house, and Louis was indeed giving a stately entertainment there, avowedly in order to do honor to the memory of him who had made so munificent a gift, but in reality to prove to himself that he was master where he had been slave, and that he could, if he pleased, amuse himself to his heart's content in the house that had been the dwelling of his tyrant. What Louis, always dissimulative, feigned to be an act of gracious homage to dead generosity was in truth an act of defiant and safe self-a.s.sertion. Perhaps Lagardere guessed as much. Certainly he played agreeably upon the king's susceptibilities when he gave to Richelieu's bequest the name of Palais Royal, which was still quite unfamiliar, instead of the name of Palais Cardinal, which it had worn so long and by which name almost every one still called it. Certainly the king's pale cheeks reddened with satisfaction at the phrase; it a.s.sured him soothingly of what he was pleased to consider his triumph. But he allowed a slight expression of surprise to mingle with his air of complacency, and Lagardere hastened to give the reason for what was on the face of it a sufficiently strange request.

"There, before the flower of the n.o.bility of France, Lagardere will denounce Nevers's a.s.sa.s.sin and produce Nevers's child."

The king agreed again. "He shall have his wish. Where shall the invitations be sent?"

Lagardere bowed low in acknowledgment of the promise. "Sire," he said, "an emissary from Lagardere will wait upon your secretary to-morrow morning He will say that he has come for four invitations promised by your majesty for to-morrow night, and he will back his demand with the pa.s.sword 'Nevers.'"

The king bowed his head. "It shall be done as you wish," he answered. "Is there anything more?" he asked, and Lagardere replied: "This much more: that your majesty speak nothing of this to any one till midnight to-morrow."

The king agreed a third time. "Lagardere has my word."

"Then," said Lagardere, "Lagardere will keep his word."

Louis rose to his feet, and signed that the interview was ended. "If he does, I am his friend for life. But if he fail, let him never enter France again, for on my word as a gentleman I will have his head."

He saluted Lagardere slightly, and turned and crossed the bridge. A few paces beyond it he was joined by Chavernay and Bonnivet. The three stood together for a few moments; then the king and Bonnivet continued their journey towards Neuilly, leaving Chavernay behind them, lingering in the shade of the trees.

XVI

SHADOWS

Lagardere looked thoughtfully after the departing monarch. "G.o.d save your majesty for a gallant man," he murmured to himself. "Now we may enter Paris in safety. Why, who is this?" He was about to enter the Inn, when he suddenly stopped and looked back sharply over the Neuilly road. To his surprise he saw that the light-heeled fop who had accompanied the king was retracing his steps in the direction of the bridge.

Lagardere asked himself what this could mean. Did the king suspect him?

Was he sending this delicate courtier to question him, to spy upon him?

He moved a little way across the stretch of common land, and stood at the side of the caravan so that he was concealed from any one crossing the bridge from Neuilly. As a matter of fact, Chavernay's return had nothing whatever to do with the business which had brought the king to the Inn of the Three Graces. He had asked and gained permission to be free to pursue a pastime of his own, and that pastime was to try and learn something of the pretty lady whom he had frightened into the seclusion of the Inn, a pastime that he felt the freer to pursue now that the king's a.s.surance that he had visited the Three Graces for the sake of no woman.

So, dreaming of amorous possibilities, Chavernay came daintily across the bridge, very young, very self-confident, very impudent, very much enjoying himself. As he neared the Inn he looked about him nonchalantly, and, seeing that no one was in sight, he stooped and caught up a pebble from the roadway and flung it dexterously enough against the window above the Inn porch. Then he slipped, smiling mischievously, under the doorway of the Inn, and waited upon events. In a moment the window was opened, and Gabrielle looked out. "Is that you, Henri?" she asked, softly.

Instantly Chavernay emerged from his hiding-place, and stood bareheaded and bending almost double before the beautiful girl. "It was I," he said, with a manner of airy deference.

Gabrielle drew back a little. "You? Who are you?" she asked, astonished.

Chavernay again made her a reverence. "Your slave," he a.s.serted.

Gabrielle remembered him now, and looked annoyed. "Sir!" she said, angrily.

Chavernay saw her anger, but was not dismayed. He was familiar with the feigned rages of pretty country girls when it pleased great lords to make love to them. "Listen to me," he pleaded. "Ever since I first saw you I have adored you."

He meant to say more, but he was not given the time in which to say it, for Lagardere came forth from his shelter beside the caravan and interrupted him. At the sight of Lagardere, Gabrielle gave a little cry and closed the window. Lagardere advanced to Chavernay, who stared in astonishment at the presumption of the gypsy fellow--a gypsy fellow that carried a sword under his mantle.

"That young girl is under my care, little gentleman," Lagardere said, mockingly.

But Chavernay was not easily to be dashed from his habitual manner of genial insolence, and he answered, as mockingly as Lagardere: "Then I tell you what I told her: that I adore her."

Lagardere eyed him whimsically, grimly. He felt disagreeably conscious of the contrast between himself in his shabby habit and the gilded frippery of this brilliant young insolence. He speculated with melancholy as to the effect of this contrast on the young girl that witnessed it. "You imp, you deserve to be whipped!" he said, sharply.

Chavernay stared at him with eyes wide with astonishment, and explained himself, haughtily: "I am the Marquis de Chavernay, cousin of the Prince de Gonzague."

Lagardere changed his phrase: "Then you come of a bad house, and deserve to be hanged!"

In a second the little marquis dropped his daffing manner. "If you were a gentleman, sir," he cried, "and had a right to the sword you presume to carry, I would make you back your words!"

Lagardere smiled ironically. "If it eases your mind in any way," he said, quietly, "I can a.s.sure you that I am a gentleman, although a poor one, and have as good right to trail a sword as any kinsman of the Prince de Gonzague." He paused, and then added, not unpityingly: "I would rather beat you than kill you."

Chavernay was scarcely to be appeased in this fashion. Something in Lagardere's carriage, something in his voice, convinced the little marquis that his enemy was speaking the truth, and that he was, indeed, a gentleman. "Braggart!" he cried, and, drawing his sword, he struck Lagardere across the breast with the flat of his blade.

Lagardere was quite unmoved by the affront. Leisurely he drew his sword and leisurely fell into position, saying, "Very well, then."

The swords engaged for a moment--only for a moment. Then, to the surprise and rage of Chavernay, his hand and his sword parted company, and the sword, a glittering line of steel, leaped into the air and fell to earth many feet away from him. Even as this happened, Gabrielle, who had been watching with horror the quarrel from behind her curtains, came running down the Inn stairs and darted through the door into the open.

She turned to Lagardere, appealing: "Do not hurt him, Henri; he is but a child."

The little marquis frowned. He disliked to be regarded as a pitiable juvenile. "If the gentleman will return me my sword," he said, "I will not lose it again so lightly."

Lagardere looked at him with kind-hearted compa.s.sion. "If I returned you your sword twenty times," he said, "its fate would be twenty times the same. Take your sword and use it hereafter to defend women, not to insult them."

While he was speaking he had stepped to where Chavernay's blade lay on the sward, and had picked it up, and now, as he made an end of speaking, he handed Chavernay the rapier. Chavernay took it, and sent it home in its sheath half defiantly. "Fair lady, I ask your pardon," he said, bowing very reverentially to Gabrielle. "Let me call myself ever your servant." He turned and gave Lagardere a salutation that was more hostile than amiable, and then recrossed the bridge in his airiest manner as one that is a lord of fortune. Lagardere stood silent, almost gloomy, looking at the ground. Gabrielle regarded him for a moment timidly, and then, advancing, softly placed a hand upon his shoulder.

"You are not angry with me?" she whispered.

Lagardere turned to her and forced himself to smile cheerfully.

"Angry--with you? How could that be possible?" He was silent for a moment, then he asked: "Do you know that gentleman?"

Gabrielle shook her head. "I saw him for the first time to-day, not very long ago, when I was speaking to Flora. I had come out for a moment when she called to me, and he came over the bridge and took us unawares."

Lagardere looked at her thoughtfully. "Could you love such a man as he?"

he asked, gravely. "He is young, he is brave, he is witty; he might well win a girl's heart."

Gabrielle returned Lagardere's earnest look with a look of surprise. "He is a n.o.ble. I am a poor girl."