nd laughed--a little
oddly. But she fetched the weapon. "Take it, and do not," she urged,
"do not lose time. Do not mention me to Pavannes. Do not let the
white badges be seen as you return. That is really all. And now good
luck!" She gave me her hand to kiss. "Good luck, my knight-errant,
good luck--and come back to me soon!"

She smiled divinely, as it seemed to me, as she said these last words,
and the same smile followed me down stairs: for she leaned over the
stair-head with one of the lamps in her hand, and directed me how to
draw the bolts. I took one backward glance as I did so at the fair
stooping figure above me, the shining eyes, and tiny outstretched hand,
and then darting into the gloom I hurried on my way.

I was in a strange mood. A few minutes before I had been at Pavannes'
door, at the end of our journey; on the verge of success. I had been
within an ace, as I supposed at least, of executing my errand. I had
held the cup of success in my hand. And it had slipped. Now the
conflict had to be fought over again; the danger to be faced. It would
have been no more than natural if I had felt the disappointment keenly:
if I had almost despaired.

But it was otherwise--far otherwise. Never had my heart beat higher or
more proudly than as I now hurried through the streets, avoiding such
groups as were abroad in them, and intent only on observing the proper
turnings. Never in any moment of triumph in after days, in love or
war, did anything like the exhilaration, the energy, the spirit, of
those minutes come back to me. I had a woman's badge in my cap--for
the first time--the music of her voice in my ears. I had a magic ring
on my finger: a talisman on my arm. My sword was at my side again.
All round me lay a misty city of adventures, of danger and romance,
full of the richest and most beautiful possibilities; a city of real
witchery, such as I had read of in stories, through which those fairy
gifts and my right hand should guide me safely. I did not even regret
my brothers, or our separation. I was the eldest. It was fitting that
the cream of the enterprise should be reserved for me, Anne de Caylus.
And to what might it not lead? In fancy I saw myself already a duke and
peer of France--already I held the baton.

Yet while I exulted boyishly, I did not forget what I was about. I kept
my eyes open, and soon remarked that the number of people passing to
and fro in the dark streets had much