forming his Highness
that we, poor creatures, spoke no French.

"How came you in Paris, then?"

M. Etienne for the fourth time went through with his tale. I think this
time he must have trembled over it. My Lord Mayenne had not the
reputation of being easily gulled. For aught we knew, he might be
informed of the name and condition of every person who had entered Paris
this year. He might, as he listened stolid-faced, be checking off to
himself the number of monsieur's lies. But if M. Etienne trembled in his
soul, his words never faltered; he knew his history well, by this. At
its finish Mayenne said:

"Come in here."

The lackey was ordered to wait outside, while we followed his Grace of
Mayenne across the council-room to that table by the window where he had
sat with Lucas night before last. I clinched my teeth to keep them from
chattering together. Not Grammont's brutality, not Lucas's venom, not
Mlle. de Tavanne's rampant suspicion, had ever frightened me so horribly
as did Mayenne's amiable composure. He made me feel as I had felt when I
entered the tunnel, helpless in the dark, unable to cope with dangers I
could not see. Mayenne was a well, the light shining down its sides a
way, and far below the still surface of the water. You hang over the
edge and peer till your eyes drop out; you can as easily look through
iron as discern how deep the water is. I seemed to see clearly that
Mayenne suspected us not in the least. He was as placid as a summer day,
turning over the contents of the box, showing little interest in us,
much in our wares, every now and then speaking a generous word of praise
or asking a friendly question. He was the very model of the gracious
prince; the humble tradesmen whom we feigned to be must needs have
worshipfully loved him. Yet withal I believed that all the time he knew
us; that he was amusing himself with us. Presently, when he tired, he
would walk casually out of the room and send in his creatures to stab
us.

Had I known this for a truth, that he had discovered us, I should have
braced myself, I trow, to meet it. The certainty would have been
bearable; I had courage to face ruin. It was the uncertainty that was so
heart-shaking--like crossing a morass in the dark. We might be on the
safe path; we might with every step be wandering away farther and
farther into the treacherous bog; there was no way to tell. Mayenne was
quite the man to be kindly patron of the crafts, to pick out a ri