"You do not appear enchanted, nevertheless."

"I am only moderately so, I confess."

"Captain!"

"Ah, monsieur, how bad-tempered you are."

"I?"

"Yes; you are always getting angry. I like my solitude; that does not
speak."

"Monsieur!"

"Again. Now listen. Do you believe, as you say, that chance has brought
us together?"

"What should it be?"

"Some combination of our jailers--of D'Argenson's, or perhaps Dubois's."

"Did you not write to me?"

"I?"

"Telling me to feign illness from ennui."

"And how should I have written?--on what?--by whom?"

Gaston reflected; and this time it was La Jonquiere who watched him.

"Then," said the captain presently, "I think, on the contrary, that it
is to you we owe the pleasure of meeting in the Bastille."

"To me, monsieur?"

"Yes, chevalier; you are too confiding. I give you that information in
case you leave here; but more particularly in case you remain here."

"Thank you."

"Have you noticed if you were followed?"

"No."

"A conspirator should never look before, but always behind him."

Gaston confessed that he had not taken this precaution.

"And the duke," asked La Jonquiere, "is he arrested?"

"I know not; I was going to ask you."

"Peste! that is disagreeable. You took a young woman to him?"

"You know that."

"Ah! my dear fellow, everything becomes known. Did not she give the
information? Ah! woman, woman!"

"This was a brave girl, monsieur; I would answer for her discretion,
courage, and devotion."

"Yes, I understand. We love her--so she is honey and gold. What an idea
of a conspiracy you must have to take a woman to the chief of the plot!"

"But I told her nothing; and she could know no secrets of mine but such
as she may have surprised."

"She has a keen eye."

"And if she knew my projects, I am convinced she would never have
spoken."

"Oh, monsieur, without counting her natural disposition to that
exercise, can we not always make a woman speak? Some one might have
said, without any preparation 'Your love for M. de Chanlay will lose
your head'--I will wager that she will speak."

"There is no danger--she loves me too much."

"That is the very reason, pardieu! that she would chatter like a magpie,
and that we are both caged up. However, let us drop this. What do you do
here?"

"Amuse myself."

"Amuse yourself--how?"

"With making verses, eating sweets, and making holes in the floor."

"Holes in the king's boards?" sa