Umph!" said the Professor, and for half a mile spoke no more.

Then he nodded his head sagely, and communed to himself without speech.

"She is right," he said; "she is warning me. What have I to do with
young maids?--I who might have had maids of my own, fool that I was!
Hey, what's that? Stand back there, or I will spit any two of
you--dogs!"

A laughing, dancing convoy of gold-laced pages from the Chateau, now
rapidly filling up for the momentous meeting of the States-General,
swirled out of the willow-copses by the Loire side. Claire was caught
into the turmoil of the dance, as a flight of wild pigeons might envelop
a tame dove wandering from the Basse Cour.

"Go up, bald-head!" they cried, "grey beards and young maids go not well
together!"

The Professor of Eloquence, stung by the affront, lifted his only
weapon, a stout oaken cudgel. And with such a pack of beardless loons,
the mere threat was enough. They scattered, screaming and laughing.

"I will report you to the Provost-Marshal, to the Major-domo of the
palace, and your backs shall pay for this insolence to my niece!"

"I think they meant no harm, sir," said Claire breathlessly, taking the
arm of the Professor of the Sorbonne. She was astonished at his heat.

"The whipping-bench and a good dozen spare rods are what they want!"
growled the Professor. "These are ill times. 'Train up a child in the
way he should go,' saith the Book. But in these days the young see only
evil all their days, and when they are old they depart not from that!"

CHAPTER XV.

MISTRESS CATHERINE

Upon the return of the Professor and Claire from the river-side to the
little walled garden and white house of Dame Granier, they found Anthony
Arpajon waiting for them. With him was a lady--no, a girl of thirty; the
expression is right. For through the girlish brightness of her
complexion, and in spite of the quick smile that went and came upon her
lips, there pierced the sure determination and settled convictions of
the adult of a strong race.

"I am Catherine d'Albret and a cousin of your friend," said the girl; "I
have a number of followers--brave gentlemen all of them, who have ridden
with me from the south. They are lodging with our friend Anthony here.
But I am come to abide with you--if I may. We shall share the same room
and, if you like me, we shall talk the moon across the sky!"

She held out both her hands, but Claire's shy Scottish blood still held
off. The