The hunchback answered, quietly: "Good news is always welcome." And to the ears of Peyrolles the voice was the voice of aesop, and to the eyes of Peyrolles the form and the face of the speaker were the form and the face of aesop.

Peyrolles went on: "His highness the Prince de Gonzague is delighted with the girl you have found; she will pa.s.s admirably for the girl of Nevers."

The seeming aesop nodded his head and said, quietly: "I am glad to hear it."

"The Prince wishes to see you," Peyrolles continued. "The Prince wishes you to enter his service. Master aesop, Master aesop, your fortune is made, thanks to me."

"Thanks to me, I think," the hunchback commented, dryly.

Peyrolles shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "Come to the Hotel de Gonzague to-morrow, and ask for me."

"I will come," the hunchback promised. Then Peyrolles hastened over the bridge, and made all speed to rejoin his master.

When he was well on his way the hunchback drew himself into a chair, laughing heartily. "Oh, aesop, aesop," Lagardere murmured to himself, "how vexed you would be if you knew how useful you prove to me!"

XIX

THE HALL OF THE THREE LOUIS

One of the handsomest rooms in the Palace of Gonzague, as the Palace of Nevers was now called, was known as the Hall of the Three Louis. It was so called on account of the three life-sized portraits which it contained. The first was the portrait of the late duke, Louis de Nevers, in all the pride of that youth and joyousness which was so tragically extinguished in the moat of Caylus. His fair hair fell about his delicate, eager face; his left hand rested upon the hilt of the sword he knew how to use so well; his right hand, perhaps in the pathos, perhaps in the irony of the painter's intention, was pressed against his heart, for Louis de Nevers had been a famous lover in his little day, but never so true a lover as when he wooed and won the daughter of the hostile house of Caylus. A heavy curtain by the side of the picture masked an alcove sacred to the memory of Nevers.

Facing the portrait of the dead duke was the portrait of his successor, of the present master of the house. Louis de Gonzague, in all other things a contrast to Louis de Nevers, contrasted with him most flagrantly in appearance. Against the fair, boyish face of Nevers you had to set the saturnine Italianate countenance of Gonzague. The brilliancy of Louis de Nevers was all external, bright as summer is bright, gay as summer is gay, cheerful as summer is cheerful. The brilliancy of Louis de Gonzague showed more sombrely, as melting gold flows in a crucible. No one who saw the picture could fail to deny its physical beauty, but many would deny it the instant, the appealing charm which caught at the heart of the spectator with the first glance he gave to the canvas that portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant colors--clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note, and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten its solemnity.

The third picture, which was placed between Louis de Nevers and Louis de Gonzague, was the portrait of Louis, not as he now looked, being King of France in reality, but as he looked some seventeen years earlier, when the cardinal was beginning his career, and when the peevishness of youth had not soured into the yellow melancholy of the monarch of middle age.

It was in this room, consecrated to the memory of his dead friend, to the honor of his living friend, and to the glory of his own existence, that Louis de Gonzague loved to work. It was a proof of his well-balanced philosophy that he found nothing to trouble him in the juxtaposition of the three pictures. The great double doors at one end of the room served to shut off a hall devoted for the most part to the private suppers which it was Louis de Gonzague's delight to give to chosen friends of both s.e.xes, and when, as often happened, supper ended, and a choice company of half-drunken women and wholly drunken men reeled through the open doors into the room where the three Louis reigned, Gonzague, who himself kept always sober, was no more than cynically amused by the contrast between the noisy and careless crew who had invaded the chamber and the sinister gravity with which the portraits of the three Louis regarded one another.

The king himself, who sometimes since his freedom surrept.i.tiously made one at these merry gatherings, where a princely fortune and a more than princely taste directed all that appealed to all appet.i.tes--the king himself, coming flushed from one of these famous suppers into the sudden coolness and quiet of the great room, would appear to be more impressed than his host at the sudden sight of the three canvases. Then, in a voice perhaps slightly unsteady, but still carrying in its flood the utterance of a steady purpose, Louis of France would catch Louis de Gonzague by the wrist, and, pointing to the bright, smiling image of Louis de Nevers, would repeat for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time his oath of vengeance against the a.s.sa.s.sin of his friend if ever that a.s.sa.s.sin should come into his power. And hearing this oath for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time, Louis de Gonzague would always smile his astute smile and incline his head gravely in sign of sympathy with the king's feelings, and allow his fine eyes to be dimmed for an instant with a suggestion of tears.

The room was an interesting room to any one curious as to the concerns of the Prince de Gonzague for other reasons than the presence of the three pictures, for to any one who knew anything about the arrangements of the palace this room represented, as it were, a kind of debatable land between the kingdom of Gonzague on the one side and the kingdom of Nevers on the other. A door on the left communicated with the private apartments of Louis de Gonzague. Cross the great room to the right, and you came to a door communicating with the private apartments of Madame the Princess de Gonzague. The Prince de Gonzague never pa.s.sed the threshold of the door that led to the princess's apartments. The Princess de Gonzague never pa.s.sed the threshold of the door that led to the prince's apartments. Ever since their strange marriage the man and the woman had lived thus apart; the man, on his part, always courteous, always deferential, always tender, always ready to be respectfully affectionate, and the woman, on her part, icily reserved, wrapped around in the blackness of her widowhood, inexorably deaf to all wooing, immovably resolute to be alone.

What rumor said was, for once, quite true. The young d.u.c.h.ess de Nevers, on the night of her marriage to Prince Louis de Gonzague, had warned him that if he attempted to approach her with the solicitations of a husband she would take her life, and Louis de Gonzague, who, being an Italian, was ardent, but who, being an Italian, was also very intelligent, saw that the young wife-widow meant what she said and would keep her word, and desisted discreetly from any attempt to play the husband. After all, he had his consolations: he controlled the vast estates of his dead friend and kinsman, and though he felt for the lady he had married a certain animal attraction, which easily cooled as the years went on, his pa.s.sion for the wealth of Nevers was more p.r.o.nounced than his pa.s.sion for the wife of Nevers, and he contented himself easily enough with the part a.s.signed to him by his wife in the tragi-comedy. Every day he requested, very courteously, through Monsieur Peyrolles, permission to wait upon the princess, and every day the princess, also through a servant, expressed her regret that the state of her health would not allow her the pleasure of receiving his highness. So it had been through the years since Louis de Nevers was done to death in the moat of Caylus.

On the day after the fair at Neuilly, Louis de Gonzague was seated in the room of the Three Louis busily writing at a table. By his side stood Peyrolles, his gorgeous attire somewhat unpleasantly accentuating the patent obsequiousness with which he waited upon his master's will. For a while Gonzague's busy pen formed flowing Italian characters upon the page before him. Presently he came to an end, reread his letter, shook over the final writings some silver sand, then folded it and sealed it leisurely. When he had done he spoke to Peyrolles:

"This letter is to go to his majesty. Send Dona Flora here. Stay! Who is in the antechamber?"

Peyrolles answered with a bow: "The Chevalier Cocarda.s.se and the Chevalier Pa.s.sepoil, monseigneur."

Gonzague made a faint grimace. "Let them wait there."

Peyrolles inclined profoundly. "Yes, monseigneur," he said, and waited.

The long knowledge of his master's manner, the long study of the expression on his master's face, told him he had not done with him, and he was right, for in a moment Gonzague spoke to him again:

"This gypsy girl will serve the turn to perfection. She is dark, as Gabrielle de Caylus was dark. She is beautiful, not so beautiful as Gabrielle de Caylus indeed, but, bah! filia pulchra, matre pulchrior.

Before the king to-day I will produce her. The princess cannot but accept her. If afterwards a charming young girl should die of a decline--many die so--the fortune of Louis de Nevers becomes the fortune of Louis de Gonzague, who will know very well what to do with it, having the inestimable advantage of being alive."

Peyrolles indulged in the privilege of a faint little laugh at this witticism of his master, but apparently the applause did not please Gonzague, who gave him a gesture of dismissal. "Send the girl to me at once," he said; and with a still more humble salute Peyrolles quitted the apartment. When Gonzague was alone he sat for a few minutes staring before him like one who dreams waking. Then he turned and glanced at the picture of Louis de Nevers, and an ironical smile wrinkled, more than time had ever done, his handsome face. Evidently the contemplation of the picture seemed to afford him a great deal of satisfaction, for he was still looking at it, and still wearing the same amused smile, when the door behind him opened and Flora came timidly into the room. She was not in appearance the same Flora who had dwelt in the caravan and danced for strangers on the previous day. She was now richly and beautifully dressed as a great lady should be, but she seemed more awkward in her splendid garments than she had ever seemed in the short skirts of the gypsy.

Gonzague, whose every sense was acute, heard her come in, though she stepped very softly, and abandoned his contemplation of the picture of Louis de Nevers. He turned round and rose to his feet, and made her one of his exquisite salutations. The girl drew back with a little gasp and pressed her hands to her bosom.

Gonzague smiled paternally. "Are you afraid of me?"

The girl shook her head dubiously, and there was suspicion in her dark eyes as she asked: "What do you want of me?"

Gonzague smiled more paternally than before. "I want you to love me," he said; and then, seeing that the gypsy lifted her brows, he continued, leisurely: "Do not misunderstand me. Women still are sometimes pleased to smile on me. I do not want such smiles from you, child. There is another fate for you. Are you content with your new life?"

Flora answered him with a weary tone in her voice and a weary look on her pretty face. "You have given me fine clothes and fine jewels. I ought to be content. But I miss my comrades and my wandering life."

Gonzague was still paternal as he explained: "You must forget your wandering life. Henceforward you are a great lady. Your father was a duke."

Flora gave a little gasp, and questioned: "Is my father dead?"

Gonzague allowed his chin to fall upon his breast and an expression of deep gloom to overshadow his face. "Yes," he said, and his voice was as a requiem to buried friendship.

Flora's heart was touched by this display of friendship. "And my mother?"

she asked.

Gonzague's face lightened. "Your mother lives."

Flora questioned again, this time very timorously: "Will she love me?"

Gonzague seemed to look at the girl sympathetically, but really looked at her critically. He found her so pleasing to his eye that he almost regretted that she had been chosen for the part she had to play, but also he found her on the whole so suited to that part that he felt bound to stifle his regret. "Surely," he said, and smiled kindly upon her.

Flora gave a little sigh of satisfaction. "I have always dreamed that I should be a great lady. And dreams come true, you know--the dreams that gypsies dream."

Gonzague raised his hand to check her speech. "Forget the gypsies. Forget that the gypsies called you Flora. Your name is Gabrielle."

Flora gave a start of surprise. "Gabrielle!" she said. "How strange! That is the name of my dearest friend."

It was Gonzague's turn to be surprised, but he never was known to betray an emotion. It was with an air of complete indifference that he asked: "Who is she?"

And Flora answered, simply: "A girl I knew and loved when we were living in Spain."

Gonzague knew that he was agitated; and that he had every reason to be agitated, but he knew also that no one beholding him would know of his agitation. "What became of her?" he asked, still with the same apparent indifference.

And Flora answered as readily as before: "We travelled to France together."

"Travelled to France together!" echoed Gonzague.

Perhaps, in spite of himself, some hint of keenness was betrayed in the voice he was so studious to keep indifferent, for this time Flora gave question for question, suspiciously: "Why does all this interest you?"

Gonzague's voice was perfectly indifferent when he replied: "Everything that concerns you interests me. Tell me; was this other Gabrielle a Spaniard like you?"

Flora shook her head. "Oh no. She was French."