it."

"Monsieur, you show what little surprises me--knightly generosity. It is
to that generosity I appeal."

"Is the horse of that colour? But now you were frightening my prudence."

"Ah, but how fortunate the man to whom generosity and prudence point the
same path!"

It may have been but pretence, this smiling bonhomie of Monsieur's.
Mayenne doubtless gauged it as such, but, at any rate, he suffered it to
warm him. He regained of a sudden all the amiability with which he had
greeted his guest. Smiling and calm, he answered:

"St. Quentin, I care little for either your threats or your cajoleries.
They amuse me alike, and move me not. But I have a care for my sweet
cousin. Since you threaten me with her danger, you have the whiphand."

Now it was Monsieur's turn to sit discreetly silent, waiting.

"I went last night to tell the child I would not harm her lover. Lo! she
had flown. I had a regiment searching Paris for her. I was in the
streets myself till dawn."

"Monsieur, she made her way to us at St. Denis to offer herself to our
torture did you torture Mar."

"Morbleu!" Mayenne cried, half rising.

"God's mercy, we're not ruffians out there! I tell it to show you to
what the maid was strung."

"I never thought it great matter whom one married," Mayenne said
slowly: "one boy is much like another. I should have mated her as
befitted her station--I thought she would be happy enough. And she was
good about it: I did not see how deep she cared. She was docile till I
drove her too hard. She's a loving child. You are fortunate in your
daughter, St. Quentin."

Monsieur sprang up radiant, advancing on him open-armed. Mayenne added,
with his cool smile:

"You need not flatter yourself, Monsieur, that it is your doing. I laugh
at your threats. 'Twere sport to me to clap you behind bars, to say to
your king, to the mob you brag of, 'Come, now, get him out.'"

"Then," cried Monsieur, "I must value my sweet daughter more than ever."

He was standing over Mayenne with outstretched hand, but the chief
delayed taking it.

"Not quite so fast, my friend. If I yield up the Duc de St. Quentin, the
Comte de Mar, and Mlle. Lorance de Montluc, I demand certain little
concessions for myself."

"By all means, monsieur. You stamp us churls else."

My duke sat again, his smile a shade uneasy. Which Mayenne perceived
with quiet enjoyment, as he went on blandly: "Nothing that I could ask
of you, M. de St. Quentin, could equa