There was a scurrying in the hall, as if half a dozen idlers were plunging into their doublets and running to their places.  Then my good friend Pierre opened the door.  In the row of underlings at his back I recognized the two who had taken part in my flogging.  The cold sweat broke out upon me lest they in their turn should know me.

M. Etienne looked from one to another with the childlike smile of his bare lips, demanding if any here spoke Italian.

“I,” answered Pierre himself.  “Now, what may your errand be?”

“Oh, it’s soon told,” M. Etienne cried volubly, as one delighted to find himself understood.  “I am a jeweller from Florence; I am selling my wares in your great houses.  I have but just sold a necklace to the Duchesse de Joyeuse; I crave permission to show my trinkets to the fair ladies here.  But take me up to them, and they’ll not make you repent it.”

“Go tell madame,” Pierre bade one of his men, and turning again to us gave us kindly permission to set down our burden and wait.

For incredible good luck, the heavy hangings were drawn over the sunny windows, making a soft twilight in the room.  I sidled over to a bench in the far corner and was feeling almost safe, when Pierre—­beshrew him!—­called attention to me.

“Now, that is a heavy box for a maid to help lug.  Do you make the lasses do porters’ work, you Florentines?”

“But I am a stranger here,” M. Etienne explained.  “Did I hire a porter, how am I to tell an honest one?  Belike he might run off with all my treasures, and where is poor Giovanni then?  Besides, it were cruel to leave my little sister in our lodging, not a soul to speak to, the long day through.  There is none where we lodge knows Italian, as you do so like an angel, Sir Master of the Household.”

Now, Pierre was no more maitre d’hotel than I was, but that did not dampen his pleasure to be called so.  He sat down on the bench by M. Etienne.

“How came you two to be in Paris?” he asked.

My lord proceeded to tell him I know not what glib and convincing farrago, with every excellence, I made no doubt, of accent and gesture.  But I could not listen; I had affairs of my own by this time.  The lackeys had come up close round me, more interested in me than in my brother, and the same Jean who had held me for my beating, who had wanted my coat stripped off me that I might be whacked to bleed, now said: 

“I’ll warrant you’re hot and tired and thirsty, mademoiselle, for all you look as fresh as cress.  Will you drink a cup of wine if I fetch it?”

I had kept my eyes on the ground from the first moment of encounter, in mortal dread to look these men in the face; but now, gaining courage, I raised my glance and smiled at him bashfully, and faltered that I did not understand.

He understood the sense, if not the words, of my answer, and repeated his offer, slowly, loudly.  I strove to look as blank as the wall, and shook my head gently and helplessly, and turned an inquiring gaze to the others, as if beseeching them to interpret.  One of the fellows clapped Jean on the shoulder with a roar of laughter.