"It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle."

"They say the duke is furious."

"Not astonishing. But--a marriage! How can there be a marriage?"

Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be. Manifestly, the hall had been prepared for some such event.

It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry. And down a portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the viands of a wedding-feast--huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily, flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold.

What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been transformed into a forge. It was a forge complete--bellows and hearth, anvil and tub, hammers and tongs. There was even a s.m.u.tty-faced imp there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he worked the bellows.

"Aha! So there _was_ a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!"

"_Mais oui!_ Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks of the Rhone."

"But what does the duke intend to do?"

It was a question which more than one was asking. There was never any forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in ordinary circ.u.mstances--declare war on France, call a new Crusade. And now, with this menace of scandal in his family!

There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the valets had placed the ducal chair. All the same, the arrangements had something sinister about them. There fell a period of silence touched with panic. But not for long. Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be long suppressed. The whispering resumed:

"The duke surprised them together--the princess and her smith."

"It looks like the torture for one or both."

"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules."

"You wait until the duke--"

"Silence! He comes."

One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown open, and through this there came a surge of music--hautboys, viols, and flutes. Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their stations at either side of the door.

There entered the duke.

He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student--tall, bent, bony; a brush of white hair bristling over the top of his high and narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous. The guests were pleased to see that his mood was amiable. He came forward smiling, waved his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were a.s.sisting him into his chair as he greeted his guests. They all bent the knee to him.

Some kissed his hand--and some he kissed, especially those who were fair and of the opposite s.e.x.

If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly.

Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which convulsed his audience--something about "court and courtship": "_Je fais--la cour._"

And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page:

"Summon _mademoiselle_."

Then to another:

"Fetch in the smith."

There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and studied the forge set up in the fireplace. The imp went white under his smudge and worked the bellows until the fire on the hearth was spouting like a miniature Vesuvius.

The wait was brief.

Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and there was the Princess Gabrielle.

Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the heart--envy, desire, pure admiration. It was impossible to look at her without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and pa.s.sionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily fringed, with disquieting shadows under them.

She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so dominated them that she appeared to be alone. She took her time. She was a trifle rebellious, perhaps. But she was brave, not to say bold. She tossed her head slightly. She smiled. She and her maidens, familiar with the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised forge. Every one present was still looking at her when there came a rough command:

"Stand aside!"

A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except from the duke himself; but the command came again:

"Stand aside! Let me pa.s.s--me and my people!"

At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry:

"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!"

And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but could play the game of life and death as well--to shout out like this, and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler.

But he looked the part.

He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed.

He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin as white as a woman's.

He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart.

But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge.

But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone.

There were two old people--a man and a woman, peasants, both of them very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests, they had dropped to their knees. The other member of the smith's party would have done the same had he permitted. This was a girl of twenty or so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not notable. To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement, so that now she stood close to him and back of him.

"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment. Like all scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible contribution to the advancement of human happiness. Ourself, we feel that this contribution will be great. G.o.d knows it is concerned with a problem that is both elusive and poignant."

All this was rather above Gaspard's head. He turned to the imp at the bellows.

"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered. "You're wasting charcoal."

The duke smiled grimly.

"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held together?"

There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and ladies present--a few knowing smiles.

"There have always been those who answered _No_; there have always been those who answered _Yes_," the duke went on. "Which were right?" No answer. "My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine." He nodded toward the smith. "She would have him. She would have no one else. We knew how hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will--in an affair of the heart." He smiled gallantly. "We are familiar with the breed."

"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de Macon. But the duke silenced him with a look.