ommunication of the King's
demand. "And what do you tell me? A villain day? Draw aside the curtains
that I may see the better. What--snow? It was rain when I came in."

He sneezed twice, on which Raincy wished him a long life.

"'Tis more than the King of all the Penitent Monks wishes me," said the
Duke, shovelling notes and letters of all shapes and sizes out of his
pockets. Some had been crumpled in the palm of the hand scornfully, some
refolded meditatively, some twisted between the fingers into nervous
spills, but by far the greater number had never been opened at all.

"See what they say, Raincy," cried the Duke. "I can dress myself--one
does not need to go brave only to see the King of France playing monkey
tricks in a turban and woman's dressing-gown, scented of musk and
flounced in the fashion! Pah! But, Raincy, what a cold I have taken!
'Tis well enough for a man when he is young to go out supping in
December, but for me, at eight-and-thirty--I am raucous as a gallows'
crow! Give me my cloak, Raincy, and order my horse!"

"But, Your Grace," gasped the alarmed Raincy, "you have had no
breakfast! Your Grace would not go thus to the council--you who are more
powerful than the King--nay, whom all France, save a few heretics and
blusterers, wish to be king indeed!"

"Aye--aye--perhaps!" said Guise, not ill-pleased, "that may be very
true. But the Bearnais does not pay these rogues and blusterers of his.
That is his strength. See what an army he has, and never a sou do they
see from year's end to year's end! As for me"--here he took a paper out
of his pocket-book, and made a rapid calculation--"to entertain a war in
France, it were necessary to spend seven hundred thousand livres a
month. For our Leaguers cry 'vivas' with their mouths, but they will not
lift a pike unless we pay them well for it!"

He folded the paper carefully, as if for future reference.

"What money have I, Raincy?" he said, flapping his empty purse on the
table; "not much, I fear. It is time I was leaving Blois, Raincy, if I
wish to go with decent credit!"

Now was the valet's chance, which he had been waiting for.

"Ay, it is indeed time--and high time," said Raincy, "if these letters
speak true. Let us mount and ride to Soissons--only Your Grace and I, if
so it please you. But in an hour it may be too late."

The Duke of Guise laughed, and clapped his major-domo on the shoulder.
"Do not you also become a croaker," he cried; "leave me