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class="calibre1">is a libertine, but then he is young, and he has been reared among

libertines; he is a gamester, but punctiliously honourable at play.

Believe me, monsieur, I have some acquaintance with Marcel de

Bardelys, and his vices are hardly so black as is generally believed;

whilst in his favour I think the same may be said that you have just

said of his father - he is an honest, upright gentleman.”

 

“And that disgraceful affair with the Duchesse de Bourgogne?”

inquired Lavedan, with the air of a man setting an unanswerable

question.

 

“Mon Dieu!” I cried, “will the world never forget that indiscretion?

An indiscretion of youth, no doubt much exaggerated outside Court

circles.”

 

The Vicomte eyed me in some astonishment for a moment.

 

“Monsieur de Lesperon,” he said at length, “you appear to hold this

Bardelys in high esteem. He has a staunch supporter in you and a

stout advocate. Yet me you cannot convince.” And he shook his head

solemnly. “Even if I did not hold him to be such a man as I have

pronounced him, but were to account him a paragon of all the virtues,

his coming hither remains an act that I must resent.”

 

“But why, Monsieur le Vicomte?”

 

“Because I know the errand that brings him to Lavedan. He comes

to woo my daughter.”

 

Had he flung a bomb into my bed he could not more effectively

have startled me.

 

“It astonishes you, eh?” he laughed bitterly. “But I can assure

you that it is so. A month ago I was visited by the Comte de

Chatellerault - another of His Majesty’s fine favourites. He came

unbidden; offered no reason for his coming, save that he was making

a tour of the province for his amusement. His acquaintance with

me was of the slightest, and I had no desire that it should

increase; yet here he installed himself with a couple of servants,

and bade fair to take a long stay.

 

“I was surprised, but on the morrow I had an explanation. A courier,

arriving from an old friend of mine at Court, bore me a letter with

the information that Monsieur de Chatellerault was come to Lavedan

at the King’s instigation to sue for my daughter’s hand in marriage.

The reasons were not far to seek. The King, who loves him, would

enrich him; the easiest way is by a wealthy alliance, and Roxalanne

is accounted an heiress. In addition to that, my own power in the

province is known, whilst my defection from the Cardinalist party

is feared. What better link wherewith to attach me again to the

fortunes of the Crown - for Crown and Mitre have grown to be

synonymous in this topsy-turvy France - than to wed my daughter to

one of the King’s favourites?

 

“But for that timely warning, God knows what mischief had been

wrought. As it was, Monsieur de Chatellerault had but seen my

daughter upon two occasions. On the very day that I received the

tidings I speak of, I sent her to Auch to the care of some relatives

of her mother’s. Chatellerault remained a week. Then, growing

restive, he asked when my daughter would return. ‘When you depart,

monsieur,’ I answered him, and, being pressed for reasons, I dealt

so frankly with him that within twenty-four hours he was on his way

back to Paris.”

 

The Vicomte paused and took a turn in the apartment, whilst I

pondered his words, which were bringing me a curious revelation.

Presently he resumed.

 

“And now, Chatellerault having failed in his purpose, the King

chooses a more dangerous person for the gratifying of his desires.

He sends the Marquis, Marcel de Bardelys to Lavedan on the same

business. No doubt he attributes Chatellerault’s failure to

clumsiness, and he has decided this time to choose a man famed for

courtly address and gifted with such arts of dalliance that he

cannot fail but enmesh my daughter in them. It is a great compliment

that he pays us in sending hither the handsomest and most

accomplished gentleman of all his Court - so fame has it - yet it is

a compliment of whose flattery I am not sensible. Bardelys goes

hence as empty-handed as went Chatellerault. Let him but show his

face, and my daughter journeys to Auch again. Am I not well advised,

Monsieur de Lesperon?”

 

“Why, yes,” I answered slowly, after the manner of one who

deliberates, “if you are persuaded that your conclusions touching

Bardelys are correct.”

 

“I am more than persuaded. What other business could bring him to

Lavedan?”

 

It was a question that I did not attempt to answer. Haply he did

not expect me to answer it. He left me free to ponder another

issue of this same business of which my mind was become very full.

Chatellerault had not dealt fairly with me. Often, since I had

left Paris, had I marvelled that he came to be so rash as to risk

his fortune upon a matter that turned upon a woman’s whim. That I

possessed undeniable advantages of person, of birth, and of wealth,

Chatellerault could not have disregarded. Yet these, and the

possibility that they might suffice to engage this lady’s affections,

he appeared to have set at naught when he plunged into that rash

wager.

 

He must have realized that because he had failed was no reason to

presume that I must also fail. There was no consequence in such an

argument, and often, as I have said, had I marvelled during the past

days at the readiness with which Chatellerault had flung down the

gage. Now I held the explanation of it. He counted upon the Vicomte

de Lavedan to reason precisely as he was reasoning, and he was

confident that no opportunities would be afforded me of so much as

seeing this beautiful and cold Roxalanne.

 

It was a wily trap he had set me, worthy only of a trickster.

 

Fate, however, had taken a hand in the game, and the cards were

redealt since I had left Paris. The germs of the wager permitted

me to choose any line of action that I considered desirable; but

Destiny, it seemed, had chosen for me, and set me in a line that

should at least suffice to overcome the parental resistance - that

breastwork upon which Chatellerault had so confidently depended.

 

As the rebel Rene de Lesperon I was sheltered at Lavedan and made

welcome by my fellow-rebel the Vicomte, who already seemed much

taken with me, and who had esteemed me before seeing me from the

much that Monsieur de Marsac - whoever he might be - had told him of

me. As Rene de Lesperon I must remain, and turn to best account my

sojourn, praying God meanwhile that this same Monsieur de Marsac

might be pleased to refrain from visiting Lavedan whilst I was there.

CHAPTER VI

IN CONVALESCENCE

 

Of the week that followed my coming to Lavedan I find some difficulty

in writing. It was for me a time very crowded with events - events

that appeared to be moulding my character anew and making of me a

person different, indeed, from that Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris

they called the Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant

in their total, were of so vague and slight a nature in their detail,

that when I come to write of them I find really little that I may

set down.

 

Rodenard and his companions remained for two days at the chateau,

and to me his sojourn there was a source of perpetual anxiety, for

I knew not how far the fool might see fit to prolong it. It was

well for me that this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de

Lavedan, who disliked at such a time the presence of men attached

to one who was so notoriously of the King’s party. He came at last

to consult me as to what measures might be taken to remove them,

and I - nothing loath to conspire with him to so desirable end -

bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps evil had befallen Monsieur

de Bardelys, and that, instead of wasting his time at Lavedan, he

were better advised to be searching the province for his master.

 

This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such excellent results

that that very day - within the hour, in fact - Ganymede, aroused

to a sense of his proper duty, set out in quest of me, not a little

disturbed in mind - for with all his shortcomings the rascal loved

me very faithfully.

 

That was on the third day of my sojourn at Lavedan. On the morrow

I rose, my foot being sufficiently recovered to permit it. I felt

a little weak from loss of blood, but Anatole - who, for all his

evil countenance, was a kindly and gentle - servant was confident

that a few days - a week at most - would see me completely restored.

 

Of leaving Lavedan I said nothing. But the Vicomte, who was one

of the most generous and noble hearted men that it has ever been my

good fortune to meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by

urging that I should remain at the chateau until my recovery were

completed, and, for that matter, as long thereafter as should suit

my inclinations.

 

“At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend,” he assured me; “for, as I

have told you, we are under no suspicion. Let me urge you to remain

until the King shall have desisted from further persecuting us.”

 

And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he waived the point

with a brusqueness that amounted almost to anger.

 

“Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured at serving one

who has so stoutly served the Cause and sacrificed so much to it.”

 

At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I winced, and told

myself that my behaviour was unworthy, and that I was practising a

detestable deception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in

consideration of how far I was victim of circumstance. Did I tell

him that I was Bardelys, I was convinced that I should never leave

the chateau alive. Very noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man

have I known more averse to bloodthirstiness, but he had told me

much during the days that I had lain abed, and many lives would be

jeopardized did I proclaim what I had learned from him. Hence I

argued that any disclosure of my identity must perforce drive him

to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he had unwittingly

betrayed.

 

On the day after Rodenard’s departure I dined with the family, and

met again Mademoiselle de Lavedan, whom I had not seen since the

balcony adventure of some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also

present, a lady of very austere and noble appearance - lean as a

pike and with a most formidable nose - but, as I was soon to

discover, with a mind inclining overmuch to scandal and the

high-seasoned talk of the Courts in which her girlhood had been

spent.

 

From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous story of

Monseigneur de Richelieu’s early passion for Anne of Austria. With

much unction did she tell us how the Queen had lured His Eminence

to dress himself in the motley of a jester that she might make a

mock of him in the eyes of the courtiers she had concealed behind

the arras of her chamber.

 

This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of discreditable detail

and scant regard for either her daughter’s presence or for the

blushes that suffused the poor child’s cheeks. In every way she

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