torm, and
drove Mesdemoiselles away, when they had accorded me a greeting that
contained scant graciousness.

All unruffled by this act, from which I gathered that Yvonne the strong
had tutored Genevieve the frail concerning me, I consigned my horse to a
groom of the chateau, and linked arms with Andrea.

"Well, boy," quoth I, "what progress?"

He smiled radiantly.

"My hopes are all surpassed. It exceeds belief that so poor a thing as I
should find favour in her eyes--what eyes, Gaston!" He broke off with a
sigh of rapture.

"Peste, you have lost no time. And so, already you know that you find
favour, eh! How know you that?"

"How? Need a man be told such things? There is an inexpressible--"

"My good Andrea, seek not to express it, therefore," I interrupted
hastily. "Let it suffice that the inexpressible exists, and makes you
happy. His Eminence will doubtless share your joy! Have you written to
him?"

The mirth faded from the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades
'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful
from a nephew touching his uncle--particularly when that uncle is a
prelate--that I refrain from penning it.

We were joined just then by the Chevalier, and together we strolled
round to the rose-garden--now, alas! naught but black and naked
bushes--and down to the edge of the Loire, yellow and swollen by the
recent rains.

"How lovely must be this place in summer," I mused, looking across
the water towards Chambord. "And, Dame," I cried, suddenly changing my
meditations, "what an ideal fencing ground is this even turf!"

"The swordsman's instinct," laughed Canaples.

And with that our talk shifted to swords, swordsmen, and sword-play,
until I suggested to Andrea that he should resume his practice,
whereupon the Chevalier offered to set a room at our disposal.

"Nay, if you will pardon me, Monsieur, 't is not a room we want," I
answered. "A room is well enough at the outset, but it is the common
error of fencing-masters to continue their tutoring on a wooden floor.
It results from this that when the neophyte handles a real sword,
and defends his life upon the turf, the ground has a new feeling; its
elasticity or even its slipperiness discomposes him, and sets him at a
disadvantage."

He agreed with me, whilst Andrea expressed a wish to try the turf. Foils
were brought, and we whiled away best part of an half-hour. In the end,
the Chevalier, who had watched my play i