is over all
France, and God have mercy on the man it closes upon in anger. Think
twice, Stephen, before you say the King forgets--and then don't say it."

La Mothe rode on in silence. This sudden reminder of the justice of
the King had dashed his satisfaction. Wherever he turned it confronted
him, and always with a warning which was less a warning than a threat.
It had been so with Tristan, it was so now with Commines, nor could the
memory of the coat of mail and embroidered toy in his saddle-bags
entirely quiet the uneasiness of the threat gendered. But, seeking
relief, his thought cast back to Commines' curt instructions.

"Who is this fellow--for I suppose it is a man who is to meet me at the
Chien Noir?"

"Who is he? Slime of the gutter, contemptible old age unashamed, human
pitch whose very touch is a loathing, a repulsion, a defilement." It
seemed as if Commines was less afraid to speak his mind now that the
walls of Valmy were out of hearing, for he went on bitterly: "The King
chooses his tools well, a foul tool for a foul use, and neither you nor
I can come out of it with clean hands. His name? The gallows-cheat
has a dozen names and changes them as you would your coat. He is like
a Paris rag-picker, and his basket of life is full of the garbage he
has raked from the gutter."

"And the woman?"

"The woman! To hear you say the woman one would think there was but
one in the world. The King told me of no woman."

"Then I am not likely to get drunk in Amboise, unless your rag-picker
pours the wine.

'Heigh ho! Love is the sun,
Love is the moon and the stars by night.'

The scheme seems a foolish one to me. I can never play the part. But,
Uncle, what do you say? Shall I make a good troubadour?"

"Sing while you may," answered Commines, with a dry gravity behind the
softening of his stern mouth, "and remember that at Amboise you sing
for a King's pay."

"And I would sing five songs for nothing but the pleasure of singing
rather than one for a fee. What kind of a little lad is the Dauphin?"

Commines made no reply, but rode on with knit brows. The question so
lightly asked was one he had often weighed in his own mind nor found a
clear answer. Rumour said of him--but under her breath, for to speak
at all was dangerous--that he was shamefully neglected, slow-witted,
ill-taught, or, worse still, untaught, but, and here rumour whispered
yet lower, that flashes of shrewdness broke the d