The hunchback answered: "I have concealed his body very effectively."

Gonzague brought his palms together silently in silent applause.

"Excellent aesop! Where is Peyrolles?" he asked.

The hunchback paused for a moment before replying. "He sends his excuses.

The events of the night have upset him. But I think he will be with you soon."

The indisposition of Peyrolles did not seem to affect his master very profoundly. What, indeed, did it matter at such a moment to a man who knew that his great enemy was harmless at last and that his own plans and ambitions were safe? Gonzague came nearer to the hunchback.

"aesop, there is no doubt that Lagardere's girl is Nevers's daughter. She has his features, his eyes, his hair. Her mother would recognize her in a moment if she saw her, but--"

He paused, and the hunchback repeated his last word interrogatively: "But--?"

Gonzague smiled, not enigmatically. "She never will see her. Nevers's daughter is not destined to live long."

Well at ease now, and more than ever in the mood for joyous company, Gonzague turned to re-enter the supper-room, but the hunchback clawed at him and brought him to a halt. Gonzague stared at his follower in a bewilderment which the hunchback proceeded partially to enlighten. "You have forgotten something."

"What?" asked Gonzague, in amazement.

The hunchback made a little, appealing gesture. "Little aesop wants his reward."

Gonzague thought he understood now. "True. What is your price?"

The hunchback, more bowed than ever, with his hair more than ever huddled about his face, swayed his crippled body whimsically, and when he spoke he spoke, apologetically: "I am a man of strange fancies, highness."

Gonzague was annoyed at these preliminaries to a demand, this beating about the bush for payment. "Don't plague me with your fancies. Your price?"

The hunchback spoke, slowly, like a man who measures his words and enjoys the process of measurement: "If I killed Lagardere, it was not solely to please you. It was partly to please myself. I was jealous."

Gonzague smiled slightly. "Of his swordsmanship?"

The hunchback protested, vehemently. "No, I was his equal there. I was jealous of his luck in love."

Gonzague laughed. "aesop in love!"

The hunchback seemed to take the laugh in good part. "aesop is in love, and you can give him his heart's desire. She was in Lagardere's keeping.

She is now in yours. Give her to me."

Gonzague almost reeled under the amazing impudence of the suggestion.

"Gabrielle de Nevers! Madman!"

He laughed as he spoke, but the hunchback interrupted his laugh. "Wait.

You have to walk over two dead women to touch the wealth of Nevers. I offer to take one woman out of your way. Do not kill Gabrielle; give her to me."

Gonzague stared for a while at the hunchback in silence. "I believe the rogue is serious," he said, more as a reflection addressed to himself than as a remark addressed to the hunchback.

But the hunchback answered it: "Yes, for I love her. Give her to me, and I will take her far away from Paris, and you shall never hear of her again. She will no longer be the daughter of Nevers; she will be the wife of aesop the hunchback."

The proposition was not unpleasing to Louis of Gonzague. It certainly seemed to offer a way of getting rid of the girl without the necessity of killing her, and Gonzague was too fastidious to desire to commit murder where murder was wholly unnecessary, but the thing seemed impossible.

"She would never consent," he protested.

The hunchback laughed softly, a low laugh of self-confidence. "Look at me, monseigneur," he said, "aesop the hunchback, but do not laugh while you look and d.a.m.n me for an impossible gallant. Crooked and withered as I am, I have power to make women love me. Let me try. If I fail to win the girl, do what you please with her, and I will ask no more."

Gonzague looked keenly at the bowed, supplicating figure. "Are you thinking of playing me false?" he murmured. "Do you dream of taking the girl to give her to her mother?"

The hunchback laughed--a dry, strident laugh. "Would aesop be a welcome son-in-law to the Princess de Gonzague?"

Gonzague seemed to feel the force of the hunchback's reasoning. To marry the girl to this malformed a.s.sa.s.sin was to destroy her more utterly, she still living, than to destroy her by taking her life. "Well," he said--"well, you shall try your luck. If she marries you, she is out of my way. If she refuses you, you shall be avenged for her disdain. We can always revert to my first intention."

A slight shudder seemed to pa.s.s over the distorted form of the hunchback, but he responded with familiar confidence: "She will not disdain me."

Gonzague laughed. "Confident wooer. When do you mean to woo?"

The hunchback came a little nearer to him and spoke, eagerly: "No time like the present, highness. I thought that on this night of triumph for you I could provide for you and your friends such an entertainment as no other man in all Paris could command. I have ventured to summon your notary. Let your supper be my wedding-feast, your guests my witnesses.

Bring the girl and I will win her. I am sure of it--sure."

Gonzague was too well-bred, too scholarly a man not to have a well-bred, scholarly sense of humor. His nimble Italian fancy saw at once the contrasts between his noisy company of light men and loose women and the withered hunchback who was a murderer and the beautiful girl whom he had robbed of her birthright and was now ready to rob of her honor. "It will be a good jest," he murmured.

The hunchback indorsed his words: "The best jest in the world. You will laugh and laugh and laugh to watch the hunchback's courtship."

Gonzague turned again towards the doors. "I must rejoin my guests," he said; "but you look something glum and dull for a suitor. You should have fine clothes, fellow; they will stimulate your tongue when you come to the wooing. Go to my steward for a wedding-garment. Your bride will be here when you return."

The hunchback's bowed head came nearer still to earth in his profound inclination. "You overwhelm me with kindness."

Gonzague paused, with his hand on the door, to look at him again. "You kill Lagardere; you marry Gabrielle. Do I owe you most as bravo or bridegroom?"

Again the hunchback abased himself. "Your highness shall decide by-and-by." Then he turned and went out through the antechamber and left Gonzague alone.

Gonzague rubbed his hands. "aesop is my good genius." Then he touched a bell and a servant entered, to whom he gave instructions. "Tell Madame Berthe to come with the girl who was placed in her charge to-night."

The servant bowed and disappeared. Gonzague went to the golden doors and threw them open. Standing in the aperture, he summoned his friends to join him. Instantly there was a great noise of rising revellers, of chairs set back, of gla.s.ses set down, of fans caught up, of fluttered skirts and lifted rapiers. Men and women, the guests of Gonzague, flooded from the supper-room into the great hall, and under the gaze of the Three Louis, Oriol with his fancy, Navailles with Cidalise, Taranne, Noce, and the others, each with his raddled Egeria of the opera-house and the ballet. As they fluttered and flirted and laughed and chattered into the great hall, Gonzague held up his hand for a moment, as one that calls for silence, and in a moment the revellers were silent.

Gonzague spoke: "Friends, I have good news. Lagardere is dead."

A wild burst of applause greeted these words. The pretty women clapped their hands as they would have clapped them in the theatre for some dance or song that took their fancy. The men were not less enthusiastic. The difference between the men and the women was that the men applauded because they knew why their master was pleased; the women applauded because their master was pleased without asking the reason why. The name of Lagardere meant little or nothing to them.

Noce spoke a short funeral oration: "The scamp has cheated the gallows."

When the applause had died down, Gonzague spoke again: "Also I have good sport for you. To-night you shall witness a wedding."

XXVII

aeSOP IN LOVE