i have always been uncertain whether or not the task, as he phrased it, which ultimately became mine, was already taking form in monsieur de commines' mind. his attitude of incisive contemplation gave colour to the supposition. but, on the other hand, it was never quite clear with whom the idea truly originated: not, i am convinced with monseigneur in its final shape. when questioned, monsieur de commines always took shelter behind his favourite formula, all was as the king willed. in a sense, that, no doubt, was the case, especially in my last instructions, but from much that happened when my stewardship was accounted for i have always believed that monseigneur admitted a liability to his conscience. if that were so, then, let me say, he discharged that liability to its last shadow of a claim, discharged it generously, fully, without reserve, and at a time when he had much need to give his whole thought to his own danger.
but, interesting as a man's affairs are to himself—and there is nothing he loves better to talk about than what i have done, what i am doing, and what i shall do to-morrow—there was a curtness in his last words that warned me off to other subjects.
"shall we see mademoiselle again?"
"mademoiselle?" into monsieur de commines eyes there crept a look a uncomprehending but tolerant amusement. "alas! i have reached the age when mademoiselles cease to interest. but with youth it is different, and youth, as usual, is always right. if she has a fortune she may put a roof on solignac sooner than the king will, and at a less risk. i have known many a broken house patched-up by a woman's hand, slender and white though it is. has she a fortune, my friend, and—who is mademoiselle?"
"oh! monseigneur, i have been indiscreet."
"young and yet indiscreet, oh! no, no! besides, indiscretion is the venial offence of lovers. if it were not so long since i had kissed a maid i would almost say it is their privilege. but you see, i am ten years married, and have forgotten. if mademoiselle is satisfied, why should i complain? indeed, i would almost doubt that a man were a true lover, and had veins aglow with the dear fires of venus, if he were not discreetly indiscreet at times. it has the sanction of great antiquity, for it dates from the garden of eden. adam, i am sure, was indiscreet—he spoke to the lady without an introduction. or perhaps the devil acted as master of ceremonies? what do you think? that also would be a precedent, and one followed many a million time since then. the lord god threw adam into a sleep, and the devil waked him, eh? to this day, sleep is the greatest gift of god,—blessed be sleep!—and waking, at times, is the very devil; have you not found it so yourself?"
"oh monseigneur," i cried again, deeply hurt by his jeering banter with its pretended misapprehension. "i repeat, i have been indiscreet. i am in the wrong."
"and being there, monsieur hellewyl, you are where no gentleman should ever put himself."
i shrugged my shoulders. for a man who knew the world so well monsieur de commines was going the wrong way about gaining his end.
"to put myself right, then, i had best answer my own question; i shall see mademoiselle—to-morrow."
he only bowed, waited a second or two, then, saying carelessly that the hour was late, called a lackey to show me my quarters for the night, and we parted with constraint. yes, monsieur de commines' lesson had gone too far. i do not say it was not deserved, but youth loves to think itself above laughter, and few things bite deeper through its sensitive skin than does a barbed jest. that i was not only a fool, but an ungrateful fool, i am now the first to admit. but a wound to self-esteem has this quality, it blinds as well as galls and i could see no farther than my temper.
as i leaned out of the narrow window that overlooked the river, my indignation was too hot to be cooled by the night air, my irritation too raw to be soothed by the beauty or strangeness of the scene. and yet, to a man fresh from the outskirts of a flanders wood, how much there was of beauty and strangeness.
underneath me, beyond the fosse, lay the garden, bordered on either side by the thin stream of the water that fed the moat; beyond that swept the river, broad and full and a-swirl with strength. here it gloomed to blackness, there it flashed bright and smooth as steel where the moon caught the soundless slope of the currents as they met below ile notre dame. to the left the tour de nesle rose on the further bank, black and sinister with its tradition of murder, the water lapping almost to its buttresses. still farther to the left was the huge bulk of the chateau galliard; farther yet, and notre dame melted into the vapours of the night, lost against the background of the ile des vaches and ile de javiaux. out of the vapours rose spires, towers, and sloping roofs innumerable, shining with dew or edged to a white effulgence as the full lustre of the moon glorified them.
but if the river slept, writhing and turning in its sleep as though ill dreams of drowned men plagued its rest, paris was awake. but paris never sleeps. it is a body possessed of many souls, many spirits—devils, some would say—and when slumber nurses one to quiet another rouses to carry on the fevered actions of its life. it is a forest of many beasts; those of the day couch to their rest at sunset, and in the same hour the prowlers of the night creep from their lairs, foul beasts of prey that love the darkness and thrive on deeds from which men hide their faces. the pad, pad, pad, of their stealthy feet may be heard in the byeways, the growling of their hunger, the crash of their spring. to and fro they wander, never satisfied, and seek their dens before the coming of dawn when the creatures of innocent labour awake to the burden of a new day. no! paris never sleeps!
the wakefulness was least to the east side where, beyond the rue d'hosterische, the hotel de bourbon sulked silent in its great square courtyard. there men both waked and slept, but waked watchful and on guard lest the prowling beast, desperate from famine, should spring at higher game than common. from the south, over the river, came a murmur as of bees, a murmur that hoarsened with the livelier play of the wind, as when one taps the hive, or fell away to a thin drone with the dying of the breeze. westward, life was sharper, more individual, and with swift surprises, of which one came as i watched; the loud patter of running feet in the rue froid mantel just beyond the fosse, a woman's scream, the roaring out of a rough oath, and dwindling sobs cut through and over-borne by a far-off drunken roysterer's mirthless song.
but the obscure tragedy never moved me; a midge in a man's own eye is more hurt to him than a live coal in his neighbour's. morning might have brought counsel, but that another small fret flecked the raw of my irritation, and kept the sore open—my borrowed finery had disappeared, and in its place lay the sorry garb, yet sorrier through travel, in which i had quitted solignac. clearly that was monsieur de commines' cynic response to my challenge of the night before, and was in itself a challenge.
seek mademoiselle, will you! he said in his heart, grimly jesting, then seek her beggar-fashion, and if your tongue asks no hire for your sword's service your rags will hint an importunity. in the glimmering light of the star of flanders she may have taken you for a gentleman; go, if you will go, in the broad light of day, and let these rags speak for you!
but if he thought shame would turn me from my purpose, court life must, for once, have blunted his perception. i hold that a sweet kernel has no need to think shame of a rough shell, and from a quality in her voice, an impulse in her act, i guessed that mademoiselle was not one to judge a man wholly by the outside. a true and noble womanliness had at all times rung through her pleading, and if that were not enough there was this, she had flung no scorn even on such a feeder on garbage as this fran?ois villon, until the man's foul mind hinted a license. then, indeed, her soul flashed out. "will no man rid us of this wretch!" it was the foul mind she scorned, and not the poverty peeping through his tatters. no! monsieur de commines' jest, so far from turning me from my purpose, confirmed me in it; i would have been ashamed to feel shamed that i dared not seek her face even in rags.
it was at the gate by which we had entered on the previous night i first learned that to lodge in a royal palace had its obligations as well as its honours, and that monsieur de commines had other arrows in this quiver besides that levelled at my self-conceit. one of the three or four on guard stopped me when i would have passed out.
"your permit, monsieur, if you please," said he, civilly enough.
"permit? i have none," i answered. "i am lodging with monsieur de commines."
"ah, i remember now. monsieur has that droll of a martin to follow him, and came in with monsieur le prince last night? as a form, monsieur, i will send for my officer; will monsieur wait?"
what could monsieur do but wait, fretting and fuming, for twenty minutes. then a smooth-faced boy came, smiling, cordial, and full of words. had monsieur hellewyl rested well? were his lodgings to his mind? was it his first visit to paris? had he seen—pish! it was monsieur hellewyl this, monsieur hellewyl that, and i answering yes or no, like a country blockhead with a vocabulary of one syllable. but when at last i got my plea in he shrugged his shoulders with a grimace.
"would you have tristan hang me? how can i give passes from the louvre? let us go to the lieutenant."
so from the east gate we went to the south, and as we crossed the angle of the court, the sun being above the walls, i felt like a half-plucked daw beside a parrot, so gaily plumed was he in silks and laces such as women love, and not a thread out of place. he said nothing, but the corner of his eye burned holes in my rags, and for the twitch of his mouth i could have shaken the life half out of him with exultant satisfaction.
the lieutenant of the southern gate was monsieur de commines' companion of the night before, limping slightly from a wound in the thigh, and again my greeting was most cordial. there is no introduction like a common danger. but the whole louvre seemed in league to make me welcome, nor could even my impatience resent such friendliness to one who was a stranger. my wound and his had to be enquired for, and for the first time i learned that we had received them in a scuffle in the streets. such brawls, it seemed, were of nightly occurrence, and i had to listen to a long complaint of how badly paris was governed.
then came the whole catechism over again; had i slept? was i rested? did my wound still burn? had that fire-eating weasel of mine been well cared for? and so on for a score of questions, all so kindly, so genial, so courteous, that i would have been a flemish clod indeed to have cut them short.
but at last he asked:
"now, what can i do for you?"
"give me leave to pass the gates."
"what! you want fresh adventures?" he answered gaily, "then we must go to the captain."
he, it seemed, was on guard at the west gate, and there the comedy played itself for another half-hour. if his cordiality was colder, it was because age, in grizzling his beard, had chilled his exuberance, but it seemed none the less sincere. i must breakfast with him. what? i had breakfasted? then i must try the king's wine, and for ten minutes we talked vintages, the thing, next to women and their own doings, on which men love best to gossip. then, at last, came the belated request.
"so, so, monsieur hellewyl? but for that we we must go to the governor."
"dame," said i pettishly. "it seems as hard for a man to get out of the louvre as for most to get in."
"you are wrong," he answered, looking me straight in the eyes; "a simple word does it, monsieur; one word, a simple promise."
it was then, so drily significant was the tone, that i began to understand the dance i was being led. monsieur de commines had no intention that i should leave the louvre. no doubt the governor would have to appeal to the chancellor, the chancellor to the king, and the king was at plessis les tours. or it might be they would refer the momentous question to monseigneur himself! was he not the king's commissioner? to play the comedy further would be to play the fool.
"a single word?" said i and pausing turned back, "i think i have it, monsieur! it is commines, is it not?"
promptly he also turned.
"you have a shrewd wit when you choose to use it," he answered, laying his hand on my shoulder. "take an old soldier's advice and follow where it leads you."
that meant, make your peace with monseigneur; a thing not hard to do, for he met me as if i had just risen from my bed instead of having spent the better part of two good hours trying to out-manoeuvre him.
"you are come in good time, for we dine early," he cried, holding out both hands; "sit down, now, and let us make haste, for we leave paris at noon:" nor through the meal, or at any time, did he hint displeasure. only, when the servant, who at the close brought us water to wash our fingers, had left the room, he said suddenly:
"do you know why i did it? for this reason, to teach you that a man who is on the king's service has neither love nor hate, pride nor pique, no, nor even eyes or ears except for that service. it is a teaching you may have to follow before long."
now it was my turn to hold out my hands, but with a different impulse.
"forgive me, monseigneur——"
"i forgave you even while i taught you," he answered, not letting me finish. "what? am i so old that i cannot remember i was once young? and now i shall answer you the question you asked me last night; will you see mademoiselle again? i think so—if the king wills."
