rather down in the mouth. We had accomplished
nothing by our return to the hotel. Nay, rather had we lost, for we were
both of us, I thought, disheartened by the cold water flung on our
ambitions. I took the liberty of doubting whether perfect loyalty to
Monsieur included thwarting and disobeying his heir. It was all very
well for Monsieur to spoil Vigo and let him speak his mind as became not
his station, for Vigo never disobeyed _him_, but stood by him in all
things. But I imagined that, were M. Etienne master, Vigo, for all his
years of service, would be packed off the premises in short order.

I walked along in a brown study, wondering how M. Etienne did purpose to
rescue mademoiselle. His scheme, so far as vouchsafed to me, was
somewhat in the air. I could only hope he had more in his mind than he
had let me know. It seemed to me a pity not to be doing something in the
matter, and though I had no particular liking for Hotel de Lorraine
hospitality, I had very willingly been bound thither at this moment to
try to get a letter to mademoiselle. But he would not send me.

"No," he had said, "it won't do. Think of something better, Felix."

But I could not, and so was taking my dull way to the inn of the Trois
Lanternes.

The city wore a sleepy afternoon look. It was very hot, and few cared
to be stirring. I saw nothing worth my notice until, only a stone's
throw from the Three Lanterns, I came upon a big black coach standing at
the door of a rival auberge, L'Oie d'Or. It aroused my interest at once,
for a travelling-coach was a rare sight in the beleaguered city. As my
master had said, this was not a time of pleasure-trips to Paris. I
readily imagined that the owner of this chariot came on weighty business
indeed. He might be an ambassador from Spain, a legate from Rome.

I paused by the group of street urchins who were stroking the horses and
clambering on the back of the coach, to wonder whether it would be worth
while to wait and see the dignitary come out. I was just going to ask
the coachman a question or two concerning his journey, when he began to
snap his whip about the bare legs of the little whelps. The street was
so narrow that he could hardly chastise them without danger to me, so it
seemed best to saunter off. The screaming urchins stopped just out of
the reach of his lash and set to pelting mud at him with a right good
will, but I was too old for that game. I reflected that I was charged
with business