ou mistake, St. Quentin. You are welcome to spend the rest of your
days with me."

"In the Bastille?"

"Or in the League."

"The former is preferable."

"You may count yourself thrice fortunate, then, that a third alternative
is given you."

"It needs not the reminder. You have treated me as a prince indeed. Be
assured the St. Quentins will not forget."

"Every one forgets."

"Perhaps. But when you need our good offices we shall not have had time
to forget."

"Pardieu, St. Quentin, you have good courage to tell me to my head my
course is run!"

"My dear Mayenne, none punishes the maunderings of the court jester."

Monsieur laughed out with a gay gusto; after a moment Mayenne laughed
too. My duke cried quickly, rising and walking the length of the table
to his host:

"You have dealt with me munificently, Mayenne. You have kept back but
one thing I want. That is yourself. You know you must come over to us
sooner or later. Come now!"

The other did not flame out at Monsieur, but answered coldly:

"I have no taste to be Navarre's vassal."

"Better his than Spain's."

Mayenne shrugged his shoulders, his face at its stolidest.

"Well, I am no astrologer to read the future."

Monsieur laid an emphatic hand on his host's shoulder.

"But I read it, my friend. I see a French land under a French king, a
Catholic and a gallant fellow, faithful to old friends, friendly to old
foes. I see the dear land at peace at last, the looms humming, the mills
clacking, wheat growing thick on the battle-fields."

Mayenne looked up with a grim smile.

"I have still a field or two to water for that wheat. My compliments to
your new master, St. Quentin; you may tell him from me that when I
submit, I submit. When I have made my surrender, from that hour forth am
I his hound to lick his hand, to guard and obey him. Till then, let him
beware of my teeth! While I have one pikeman to my back, one sou in my
pouch, I fight my cause."

"And when you have none, you yet have three pairs of hands at Henry's
court to pull you up out of the mire."

"I thank their graciousness, though I shall never need their offices,"
Mayenne said grandly. He stood there stately and proud and confident,
the picture of princeliness and strength. Last night at St. Denis it had
seemed to me that no power could defy my king. Now it seemed to me that
no king could nick the power of my Lord Mayenne. When suddenly,
precisely like a mummer who in his great