Having nothing better to do,
I took my seat on the bench outside the inn and sat musing.
Late in the afternoon, I heard the light step of mademoiselle on the
threshold. On seeing me, she stopped, as if it were I whom she had come
out to seek I rose and offered her the bench. She sat down in silence,
and for a moment her eyes rested on the ground, while on her face was a
look of trouble. Suddenly she lifted her glance to mine and spoke
abruptly, as if forcing herself to broach a subject on which she would
rather have been silent.
"Monsieur," she said, "I suppose that the Sieur de la Tournoire, whom we
are so soon to meet, is a very dear friend of yours!"
"A very close friend," I replied, with an inward smile. "And yet he has
got me into so much trouble that I might fairly consider him my enemy."
"I must confess," said she, "that I have heard little of him but evil."
"It is natural that the Catholics in Berry should find nothing good to
say of him," I replied. "Yet it is true that he is far from perfect,--a
subtle rascal, who dons disguises, and masquerades as other than he is, a
leader of night-birds, and sometimes a turbulent roysterer."
"I have been told," she said, "that he treacherously killed a man in
Paris, and deserted from the French Guards."
"As for the killing," I replied, "there was no treachery or unfairness on
his part; and if he deserted from the King's French Guards, it was when
the King had consented to give him up to the Duke of Guise, whom the weak
King, then as now, hated as much as feared.
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