e
Bearnais--where the sex was concerned.

It was a good and substantial supper to which they sat down. The cookery
did credit to the handicraft of Madame Celeste, especially the salmon
steaks done in parsley sauce, and the roast capon stuffed with butter,
mint, and bread-crumbs. The wine, a white Cote Rotie, went admirably
with the viands. The Professor and Claire had but little appetite, but
the eyes of the landlady were now upon the Abbe John alone. His plate
was scarce empty before it was mysteriously refilled. His wine-glass
found itself regularly replenished by the fair plump hands of Madame
Celeste herself. All went merry as a marriage-bell, and Jean-aux-Choux,
seated a little way below the salt, and using his dagger as an entire
table equipment, worked his way steadily through everything within his
reach. For though the Fool of the Three Henries held nothing in heaven
or earth sacred from his bitter tongue when in the exercise of his
profession, he equally let nothing in heaven or earth (or even under the
earth) interfere with his appetite. He explained the matter thus:

"I have heard of men living from hand to mouth," he told Claire; "for
twenty years I have lived from table to mouth--always the same mouth,
seldom twice the same table. There was you, my little lady, to be
served first. And a hundred times your father and I went hungry that you
might eat your milk-sop hot-a-nights. While, if I could, I would cheat
my master as to what remained, his being the greater need."

"Good Jean!" said Claire, gently reaching out to pat his shaggy head.
The long-armed jester shook a little and went pale under her touch,
which was the stranger, seeing that with a twist of his shoulders he
could throw off the clutch of a strong man.

Such were the three with whom Claire travelled southward, in an
exceeding safety, considering the disturbed time. For any of them would
have given his life to shield her from harm, though as yet
Jean-aux-Choux was the only one of the three who knew it. And with him
it was a matter of course.

CHAPTER IX.

THE REBELLION OF HERODIAS' DAUGHTER

"And I suppose I am to bait the trap, as usual?"

"You forget, Valentine, that I am your uncle and a grandee of Spain."

It was the usual beginning of their quarrels, of which they had had many
as they posted along the Bordeaux road Pariswards. The Marquis Osorio
was travelling on a secret mission to Paris, a mission which had nothing
to do