not infrequently kept opponents waiting for him
when he had a duel on hand. To-night, however, he hoped for a glimpse of
Marguerite, and this made him prompt to keep his appointment. He scanned
the windows as he passed along the opposite side of the street, but no
one appeared to meet his eager gaze. With a heart palpitating like a
schoolboy's, on whom some fair girl has smiled or frowned, he slowly
retraced his steps to the heavy oaken door. His knock was answered by
the same old servant who had admitted him in the morning, and he was
shown into a large but very plainly furnished room, where De Roberval
sat before a table covered with papers and charts. The walls of the room
were hung with pictures of the hunt, of the battle-field, and of
religious subjects--the brutality of war strangely ranged side by side
with the gentle Madonna and the gentler Christ. In one corner stood a
statue of Bacchus, in another was a skull and cross-bones. Trophies of
the hunt were scattered here and there; and a pair of crossed swords
surmounted an ivory crucifix which hung above a well-worn _prie-dieu_.

"Vanity and ambition," said La Pommeraye to himself as he glanced round
the room.

The words well summed up De Roberval's character. He would have no man
in the nation greater than himself. When the famous meeting took place
at "The Field of the Cloth of Gold," between Ardres and Guines in
Picardy, all the nobles made an effort to rival the splendour of their
kings, Henry VIII. and Francis I., and they came to the meeting, as
Martin du Bellay has said, "bearing thither their mills, their forests,
and their meadows on their backs." Among them all Jean Francois de la
Roque, Sieur de Roberval, was the most resplendent. Small in stature, he
was handicapped in the use of the sword; but by patient practice he had
made up for this deficiency, and had won for himself the name of the
most skilled swordsman in France. This reputation he had maintained
against all comers till he met the man now closeted with him. He envied
the King his poetic talent, and would fain have outdone him in the art
of poesy. But even with Clement Marot's help he had been utterly unable
to woo the fickle muse. He had so stored his mind, however, that his
sovereign, the brilliant Marguerite de Nevarre, and the master intellect
of that age, Rabelais, all delighted in his society; and on account of
his ability in so many directions, and his evident ambition, Francis had
humo