out and stood
on the pavement in front of the house, a right proper prelate, giving
them in turn his hand as they stooped to kiss his amethyst ring. Then,
seeing over the Abbe John's bowed head the lady of the house, he called
out heartily to her (for he was too great to be haughty with any),
"Mistress Celeste, mind you treat these gentlemen well. It is not every
day that our good town of Orleans holds at once the light of the
Sorbonne, its mirror of eloquence, and also the nephew of my Lord
Cardinal of the Holy League, John d'Albret, claimant at only twenty
removes to the crown of France."

"Pshaw," muttered the Abbe John wearily, "I wish the old fool would go
away and let us get to dinner!"

For, indeed, at the Palace he had listened to much of this.

The hostess of the Golden Lark conducted her two guests upstairs as if
to the sound of trumpets. She gathered her skirts and rustled like the
poplar leaves of an entire winter whisking about the little Place
Royale of Orleans. The Professor of the Sorbonne had suddenly sunk into
the background. Even the almighty Duke of Guise was no better than a
bird in the bush. While here--well in hand, and hungry for an honest
Golden Lark dinner--was a real, hall-marked, royal personage, vouched
for by a bishop, and still more by the bishop's carriage and outriders!
It was enough to turn the head of a wiser woman than Madame Celeste
Gillifleur.

"And is it really true?" demanded Claire Agnew.

"Is what true, my dear lady?" said the Abbe John, very ungraciously for
him. For he thought he would have to explain it all over again.

"That you are a near heir to the throne of France?"

The Abbe John clapped his hands together with a gesture of despair.

"Just as much as I am the Abbe John and a holy man," he cried; "it
pleases them to call me so. Thank God, I am no priest, nor ever will be.
And as for the crown of France--Henry of Valois is not dead, that ever I
heard of. And if he were, I warrant his next heir and my valiant cousin,
Henry of Navarre, would have a word to say before he were passed over!"

"But," said the Professor of Eloquence, smiling, "the Pope and our wise
Sorbonne have loosed all French subjects from paying any allegiance to a
heretic!"

"By your favour, sir," said the young man, "I think both made a mistake
for which they will be sorry. Also I heard of a certain professor who
voted boldly for the Bearnais in that Leaguer assembly, and who found it
conveni