of your
arrival," he said respectfully, and passed behind a curtain, which
seemed to hide the door of an inner apartment. As he did so the clink
of glasses and the hum of conversation reached us.

"He has company supping with him," I said nervously. I tried to flip
some of the dust from my boots with my whip. I remembered that this
was Paris.

"He will be surprised to see us," quoth Croisette, laughing--a little
shyly, too, I think. And so we stood waiting.

I began to wonder as minutes passed by--the gay company we had seen
putting it in my mind, I suppose--whether M. de Pavannes, of Paris,
might not turn out to be a very different person from Louis de
Pavannes, of Caylus; whether the king's courtier would be as friendly
as Kit's lover. And I was still thinking of this without having
settled the point to my satisfaction, when the curtain was thrust aside
again. A very tall man, wearing a splendid suit of black and silver
and a stiff trencher-like ruff, came quickly in, and stood smiling at
us, a little dog in his arms. The little dog sat up and snarled: and
Croisette gasped. It was not our old friend Louis certainly! It was
not Louis de Pavannes at all. It was no old friend at all, It was the
Vidame de Bezers!

"Welcome, gentlemen!" he said, smiling at us--and never had the cast
been so apparent in his eyes. "Welcome to Paris, M. Anne!"

CHAPTER IV.

ENTRAPPED!

There was a long silence. We stood glaring at him, and he smiled upon
us--as a cat smiles. Croisette told me afterwards that he could have
died of mortification--of shame and anger that we had been so
outwitted. For myself I did not at once grasp the position. I did not
understand. I could not disentangle myself in a moment from the belief
in which I had entered the house--that it was Louis de Pavannes' house.
But I seemed vaguely to suspect that Bezers had swept him aside and
taken his place. My first impulse therefore--obeyed on the
instant--was to stride to the Vidame's side and grasp his arm. "What
have you done?" I cried, my voice sounding hoarsely even in my own
ears. "What have you done with M. de Pavannes? Answer me!"

He showed just a little more of his sharp white teeth as he looked down
at my face--a flushed and troubled face doubtless. "Nothing--yet," he
replied very mildly. And he shook me off.

"Then," I retorted, "how do you come here?"

He glanced at Croisette and shrugged his shoulders, as if I had been a