Part 11 (1/2)
”But if I took them elsewhere, even to Paris--and, heavens! how I wish I could--Amboise would be duller than ever,” protested Villon, then added, with a significance of tone which gave the careless words a weight, ”let us hope that Monseigneur and mademoiselle can protect each other as well as me.”
Again there was a dangerous silence, and this time it was Ursula de Vesc who turned aside the threatening storm.
”Monsieur La Mothe is to cure our dullness. Tell us a story, monsieur, if you will neither sing nor play. We love a story, do we not, Charles?”
”A story?” repeated La Mothe slowly. The chance suggestion, more than half malicious, had given him an unexpected opening, and he was turning in his mind how best to use it. ”Why, yes, I think I might. Once upon a time----”
”Wait a moment,” said Charles. ”Here, Ursula,” and he rose from his stool as he spoke, ”you sit down and I will sit at your feet and lean against your knee. There! That is better. Now we are both comfortable. What is the story about, monsieur?”
”It is an eastern tale, Monseigneur.”
”I like the east better than the west, don't you, Ursula?” and he looked up in the girl's face with a laugh, then at Commines in a way which lent the words point and meaning. Valmy, La Mothe remembered, lay towards the west. ”Now, monsieur, we are ready.”
”There was once a king of the Genie who dwelt in a certain part of Arabia. He was a very great and a very wise king, the greatest and wisest his kingdom had known for many centuries. During his reign he had added province to province----”
”At whose expense?” broke in Villon. ”In love and the building of kingdoms there is always a giving and a taking.”
”Silence!” cried Charles sharply. ”If you interrupt again I will have you removed, even though you are who you are. Now, monsieur, go on, please.”
”He added province to province,” continued La Mothe, ”until in all that part of Arabia there was no such kingdom for greatness or for power, and no king so feared by the kings of the surrounding countries. But though his affairs were so prosperous he had one bitter grief which was never absent from his thoughts: he was estranged from his only son, whom he loved with all a father's love.”
”Yes,” said Charles gravely, ”I see this is really an eastern story: a kind of a fairy tale, is it not, Monsieur La Mothe? A tale one wishes were true, but knows is all make-believe.”
”All fairy tales have a heart of truth,” answered La Mothe, ”and this is a very true one, Monseigneur, as I hope you will believe before I have ended. In all his cares of state, and with so great a kingdom his cares were very many, there was no such care, no such sorrow, as this longing, unsatisfied love of the father's heart. Day and night his one thought was how he might win for his old age the love which his boy----”
”Ursula, I am tired,” and Charles rose with a yawn. ”Monsieur La Follette, will you please call Hugues, and I will go to bed? If we are duller to-morrow than we are to-day we will hear the rest of the story, but I don't think I like it very much. Even fairy tales should sound probable. Good night, Monsieur d'Argenton, good night, Monsieur La Follette, good night, Monsieur La Mothe,” and with a bow which contrived to omit Villon from its scope the Dauphin left the room, followed by Ursula de Vesc. But at the door she paused a moment.
”A room will be made ready for you in the Chateau, Monsieur La Mothe, and perhaps to-morrow you will tell me the end of your story?”
”Dull?” said Villon, stretching himself with vigorous ostentation. ”My faith, yes! If you are wise, friend La Mothe, you will finish the night with me at the Chien Noir. It is not often you can rub shoulders with genius familiarly.”
But Commines already had a hand on La Mothe's arm.
”Genius?” he said, sternly contemptuous. ”Yes! Genius depraved and degraded: genius c.r.a.pulous and drunken. Take advice, Monsieur La Mothe, and bide indoors: the foulest soiling of G.o.d's earth is a foul old age unashamed of its disgrace.” Then lowering his voice to a whisper, he added, ”Come to my room when all is quiet, son Stephen.
Look out for the cross of shadow and take care that the de Vesc girl does not see you.”
The de Vesc girl! Stephen La Mothe was almost as offended by the curtly supercilious description of Mademoiselle Ursula as Villon was at the bitter judgment so uncompromisingly pa.s.sed upon him. That may have been because Cupid's bow had shot its bolt, and love's new wounds are almost as supersensitive as a poet's vanity.
CHAPTER XI
THE CROSS IN THE DARKNESS
Two or three adroit questions addressed to the servant who showed him to his sleeping-quarters gave La Mothe a sufficient clue to the whereabouts of Commines' lodgings. That they were in the same block of buildings as his own, and on the same level, made it comparatively easy to find them. But the Chateau must first settle into sleep, and he had an hour or two to wait before he could safely go in search of them un.o.bserved. In the angry mood which swayed him the delay was fortunate. For the first time in his life his temper was exasperated against the man to whom he owed everything, nor did the sight of his knapsack and lute, sent from the Chien Noir, lessen the irritation.
Few things feed the flame of a man's anger as do his own faults, and in every string of the unlucky toy--for it was little more--he saw a sharp reminder of his own false pretence to flick the soreness left by Commines.
What right had Commines to speak of Mademoiselle de Vesc as this de Vesc girl, as if she was some lumpish wench of the kitchen instead of a sweet and gracious woman, gentle and tender as a woman should be, and yet full of a splendid courage? Yes, and La Mothe strode up and down the room to give his indignation ease by the exercise of his muscles; that was Ursula de Vesc, tender, gentle, loving: but wise in her tenderness, strong in her gentleness, and utterly without fear in her love. From which it will be seen that the Cupid's bow had sent its shaft very deep indeed, and Commines by his contemptuous phrase had but driven it more surely home.