suspicion. "No men?" he echoed dully. "No men?"

"I might muster a score--no more than that."

"But, monsieur, it is within my knowledge that you have at least two
hundred. I saw at least some fifty drawn up in the courtyard below here
yesterday morning."

"I had them, monsieur," the Seneschal made haste to cry, his hands
upheld, his body leaning forward over his table. "I had them. But,
unfortunately, certain disturbances in the neighbourhood of Montelimar
have forced me to part with them. They were on the point of setting out
when you saw them."

Garnache looked at him a moment without speaking. Then, sharply:

"They must be recalled, monsieur," said he.

And now the Seneschal took refuge in a fine pretence of indignation.

"Recalled?" he cried, and besides indignation there was some horror
in his voice. "Recalled? And for what? That they may assist you in
obtaining charge of a wretched girl who is so headstrong as to wish to
marry other than her guardians have determined. A pretty affair that, as
God's my life! And for the adjustment of such a family dispute as this,
a whole province is to go to ruin, a conflagration of rebellion is to
spread unquenched? On my soul, sir, I begin to think that this mission
of yours has served to turn your head. You begin to see it out of all
proportion to its size."

"Monsieur, it may have turned my head, or it may not; but I shall not be
amazed if in the end it be the means of losing you yours. Tell me now:
What is the disturbance you speak of in Montelimar?" That was a question
all Tressan's ingenuity could not answer.

"What affair is it of yours?" he demanded. "Are you Seneschal of
Dauphiny, or am I? If I tell you that there is a disturbance, let that
suffice. In quelling it I do but attend to my own business. Do you
attend to yours--which seems to be that of meddling in women's matters."

This was too much. There was such odious truth in it that the iron sank
deep into Garnache's soul. The very reflection that such a business
should indeed be his, was of itself enough to put him in a rage, without
having it cast in his teeth as Tressan had none too delicately done.

He stormed and raged; he waved his arms and thumped the table, and
talked of cutting men to ribbons--among which men no doubt he counted my
Lord the Seneschal of Dauphiny. But from the storm of fierce invective,
of threats and promises with which he filled the air, the Seneschal
gathered with satisfaction