Commines pushed
open a door on his right, fastening it behind him as he entered.

"Stephen, Stephen, what do you know of June and December, love's
sunshine and the cold of the snow?" he said railingly.

"Nothing at all, Uncle, and just as much as I want to know," was the
answer. "But a song must have a theme or there'd be no song."

"And you think love is a better theme than the text you hold on your
knee."

"Yes: for a song. If it was a tale, now, or an epic, it would be a
different matter. But they are beyond me, both of them. Do you think,
Uncle," and La Mothe turned over the arquebuse Commines had pointed at
in jest as it lay on his lap, "this will ever be better than a curious
toy? I think it is quite useless. By the time you could prime it
here, set your tinder burning and touch it off there, I would have my
sword through you six times over."

"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat,"
replied Commines. "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to
you. Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."

"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he
stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall. "It would need a
good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."

"No. One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may
outweigh a life. And so with this. Stephen, I have commended you to
the King for service."

La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders
impulsively, one upon each. And if proof were needed of the relations
between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of
the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take
liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the
fullness of his satisfaction.

"At last," he cried. "I have been eating my heart out for this for a
week past! And you call that an ill turn?"

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity,
followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked
the one to the other at arm's length.

How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's
sweet face. There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light
with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth
and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's
in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead a