gentleman whom I mentioned to you.'

I hastened, confused, wondering, and with a hundred apologies, to pay my
respects to the king. He speedily cut me short, however, saying, with an
air of much kindness, 'Of Marsac, in Brittany, I think, sir?'

'The same, sire,'

'Then you are of the family of Bonne?'

'I am the last survivor of that family, sire,' I answered respectfully.

'It has played its part,' he rejoined, and therewith he took his seat
on my stool with an easy grace which charmed me. 'Your motto is "BONNE
FOI," is it not? And Marsac, if I remember rightly, is not far from
Rennes, on the Vilaine?'

I answered that it was, adding, with a full heart, that it grieved me to
be compelled to receive so great a prince in so poor a lodging.

'Well, I confess,' Du Mornay struck in, looking carelessly round him,
'you have a queer taste, M. de Marsac, in the arrangement of your
furniture. You--'

'Mornay!' the king cried sharply.

'Sire?'

'Chut! your elbow is in the candle. Beware of it!'

But I well understood him. If my heart had been full before, it
overflowed now. Poverty is not so shameful as the shifts to which it
drives men. I had been compelled some days before, in order to make as
good a show as possible--since it is the undoubted duty of a gentleman
to hide his nakedness from impertinent eyes, and especially from the
eyes of the canaille, who are wont to judge from externals--to remove
such of my furniture and equipage as remained to that side of the room,
which was visible from without when the door was open. This left the
farther side of the room vacant and bare. To anyone within doors the
artifice was, of course, apparent, and I am bound to say that M. de
Mornay's words brought the blood to my brow.

I rejoiced, however a moment later that he had uttered them; for without
them I might never have known, or known so early, the kindness of heart
and singular quickness of apprehension which ever distinguished the
king, my master. So, in my heart, I began to call him from that hour.

The King of Navarre was at this time thirty-five years old, his hair
brown, his complexion ruddy, his moustache, on one side at least,
beginning to turn grey. His features, which Nature had cast in a harsh
and imperious mould, were relieved by a constant sparkle and animation
such as I have never seen in any other man, but in him became ever more
conspicuous in gloomy and perilous times. Inured to danger from his
earli