but Villon had put a less pleasant gloss on this
open-faced masquerade, nor had the blunt question, Why are you in
Amboise? been easy of answer. Or rather, the answer was easy, but one
he did not relish in its naked truth. If to be the secret almoner of
the King's love for the Dauphin had been the sole reply to the
question, his scruples would have been as light as his love song. But
that answer was insufficient: there was a second answer, an answer
which Commines knew and these two men, Villon and Saxe, suspected, one
which would leave a soiling on clean hands, yet which must be faced.

He found himself in the position of a circus-rider who, with one foot
on the white horse--which was Honour--and the other on the
piebald--which was duty and a King's instructions,--has lost control of
their heads and feels his unhappy legs drawn wider and wider apart with
every stride. And in the emergency La Mothe did exactly what the
circus-rider would have done--he clung to both with every desperate
sinew on the strain. To keep his piebald still under him he went with
Villon to the Chateau, and that he might not part utterly from his
white he left his lying lute behind him. But he was not happy: mental
and spiritual unhappiness is the peculiar gift of compromise.

Nor did Villon make any protest at his decision. "As you will, it is
between you and the King," he said, with all the indifference of the
beast whose one thought is for his own skin, and then immediately
proved that he was less indifferent than he seemed. "But if I knew
which of the two you wish to win over, the boy or the woman, I might
help you."

"The boy," answered La Mothe, remembering the gifts of a father's love
which lay in the saddle-bags Commines had brought for him to the
Chateau. Ursula de Vesc was but a means to an end, the Dauphin was the
end itself.

"The boy?" Villon paused as they crossed the road in the sweet
coolness of the young night, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That's
not so easy. Women, of course, I know like my ten fingers, but
children are too subtle for me. And little lathy Charles with his
long, narrow white face and obstinate chin, is no A B C of a boy. You
must know something more than your horn-book before you understand him.
To-day he received Monsieur de Commines with all the gravity of the
Pope: 'Where is Monsieur Tristan, Tristan of the House of Great Nails?'
he asked, peering about him with those dull, tired eyes o