ificent! Vive Bardelys!"

CHAPTER II. THE KING'S WISHES

It was daybreak ere the last of them had left me, for a dozen or so had
lingered to play lansquenet after the others had departed. With those
that remained my wager had soon faded into insignificance, as their
minds became engrossed in the fluctuations of their own fortunes.

I did not play myself; I was not in the mood, and for one night, at
least, of sufficient weight already I thought the game upon which I was
launched.

I was out on the balcony as the first lines of dawn were scoring the
east, and in a moody, thoughtful condition I had riveted my eyes upon
the palace of the Luxembourg, which loomed a black pile against the
lightening sky, when Mironsac came out to join me. A gentle, lovable lad
was Mironsac, not twenty years of age, and with the face and manners of
a woman. That he was attached to me I knew.

"Monsieur le Marquis," said he softly, "I am desolated at this wager
into which they have forced you."

"Forced me?" I echoed. "No, no; they did not force me. And yet," I
reflected, with a sigh, "perhaps they did."

"I have been thinking, monsieur, that if the King were to hear of it the
evil might be mended."

"But the King must not hear of it, Armand," I answered quickly. "Even if
he did, matters would be no better--much worse, possibly."

"But, monsieur, this thing done in the heat of wine--"

"Is none the less done, Armand," I concluded. "And I for one do not wish
it undone."

"But have you no thought for the lady?" he cried.

I laughed at him. "Were I still eighteen, boy, the thought might trouble
me. Had I my illusions, I might imagine that my wife must be some woman
of whom I should be enamoured. As it is, I have grown to the age of
twenty-eight unwed. Marriage becomes desirable. I must think of an heir
to all the wealth of Bardelys. And so I go to Languedoc. If the lady be
but half the saint that fool Chatellerault has painted her, so much the
better for my children; if not, so much the worse. There is the dawn,
Mironsac, and it is time we were abed. Let us drive these plaguy
gamesters home."

When the last of them had staggered down my steps, and I had bidden a
drowsy lacquey extinguish the candles, I called Ganymede to light me to
bed and aid me to undress. His true name was Rodenard; but my friend
La Fosse, of mythological fancy, had named him Ganymede, after the
cup-bearer of the gods, and the name had clung to him. He