Argenton requires to speak
with her in the Hercules room." It was the Judge who spoke. Already
Commines stood in Louis' place to search, sift, find, and his tone was
as cold and curt as the words were brusque. Then, as an afterthought,
he added, "You can say, too, that Monsieur La Mothe is with him."

"No," said La Mothe; "omit that part of it."

For a moment Commines hesitated, annoyed by a tone curter and colder
than his own, but after a glance at La Mothe's set face he motioned to
the servant to go. That was not the moment to precipitate a conflict.

"Stephen, why not? It is the truth."

"Great heavens! do we want the truth?" answered La Mothe.

"But we are not friendly, she and I, and she may not come; you said so
yourself. Remember, we must have no scandal, no publicity."

"Yes, what you have to do will be best done in the dark."

"Stephen, be just. You know I mean that Saxe's story is not one to be
blazed abroad. Besides, nothing will be done to-night."

"But to-morrow, or next day?"

"It was not for the Dauphin's sake you risked your life this afternoon."

"That is quite true. It was for Mademoiselle de Vesc, and it may be
risked again."

"Stephen, what do you mean?" But La Mothe, striding ahead as if
impatient to face the issue and have done with uncertainties, returned
no answer. There could be no answer until he saw how events fell out.

The Hercules chamber was named after the tapestry which hid the dull
grey plaster of its walls. From the one door--and that there should be
but one was unusual in an age when to provide for the strategy of
retreat was common prudence--where the infant Hero strangled with
chubby hands the twin serpents sent for his destruction, the story of
his labours told itself with all the direct simplicity of medieval art.

No chronology was followed, the embroiderer having chosen her scenes at
pleasure or as the exigencies of space demanded. Here, Samson-like, he
tore the Numean lion jaw from jaw, his knee sunk in the shaggy chest,
his shoulders ripped to the bone as the hooked claws gripped the
muscles, his mighty torso a dripping crimson in the scheme of colour.
There he cleansed the Augean stable in a faithfulness of detail more
admirable in its approach to nature than its appeal to the
sensibilities, the artist having left nothing to the imagination;
beyond was the more human note, and Omphale bound him to her by a
single thread stronger than all the chains