ed, for, before I could assist him
to rise, I heard the door behind me open. Apprehensively I turned, and
sickened to see that that which I had dreaded most was come to pass. A
tall, imposing figure in scarlet robes stood erect and scowling on the
threshold, and behind him his valet, Bernouin, bearing a lighted taper.

Mancini's laugh faded into a tremulous cackle, then died out, and with
gaping mouth and glassy eyes he sat there staring at his uncle.

Thus we stayed in silence while a man might count mayhap a dozen; then
the Cardinal's voice rang harsh and full of anger.

"'T is thus that you fulfil your trust, M. de Luynes!" he said.

"Your Eminence--" I began, scarce knowing what I should say, when he cut
me short.

"I will deal with you presently and elsewhere." He stepped up to Andrea,
and surveyed him for a moment in disgust. "Get up, sir!" he commanded.
"Get up!"

The lad sought to obey him with an alacrity that merited a kinder fate.
Had he been in less haste perchance he had been more successful. As it
was, he had got no farther than his knees when his right leg slid from
under him, and he fell prone among the shattered tableware, mumbling
curses and apologies in a breath.

Mazarin stood gazing at him with an eye that was eloquent in scorn, then
bending down he spoke quickly to him in Italian. What he said I know
not, being ignorant of their mother tongue; but from the fierceness of
his utterance I'll wager my soul 't was nothing sweet to listen to. When
he had done with him, he turned to his valet.

"Bernouin," said he, "summon M. de Mancini's servant and assist him to
get my nephew to bed. M. de Luynes, be good enough to take Bernouin's
taper and light me back to my apartments."

Unsavoury as was the task, I had no choice but to obey, and to stalk on
in front of him, candle in hand, like an acolyte at Notre Dame, and in
my heart the profound conviction that I was about to have a bad quarter
of an hour with his Eminence. Nor was I wrong; for no sooner had we
reached his cabinet and the door had been closed than he turned upon me
the full measure of his wrath.

"You miserable fool!" he snarled. "Did you think to trifle with the
trust which in a misguided moment I placed in you? Think you that, when
a week ago I saved you from starvation to clothe and feed you and give
you a lieutenancy in my guards, I should endure so foul an abuse as
this? Think you that I entrusted M. de Mancini's training in arms