“There speaks the general!  There speaks the gentleman!” Lucas cried out.  “A general hangs a spy, yet he profits by spying.  The spy runs the risks, incurs the shames; the general sits in his tent, his honour untarnished, pocketing all the glory.  Faugh, you gentlemen!  You will not do dirty work, but you will have it done for you.  You sit at home with clean hands and eyes that see not, while we go forth to serve you.  You are the Duke of Mayenne.  I am your bastard nephew, living on your favour.  But you go too far when you sneer at my smirches.”

He was on his feet, standing over Mayenne, his face blazing.  M. Etienne made an instinctive step forward, thinking him about to knife the duke.  But Mayenne, as we well knew, was no craven.

“Be a little quieter, Paul,” he said, unmoved.  “You will have the guard in, in a moment.”

Lucas held absolutely still for a second.  So did Mayenne.  He knew that Lucas, standing, could stab quicker than he defend.  He sat there with both hands on the table, looking composedly up at his nephew.  Lucas flung away across the room.

“I shall have dismissed these people directly,” Mayenne continued.  “Then you can tell me your tale.”

“I can tell it now in two words,” Lucas answered, coming abruptly back.  “Belin signed the warrant, and sent a young ass of the burgher guard after Mar.  I attended to some affairs of my own.  Then after a time I went round to the Trois Lanternes to see if they had got him.  He was not there—­only that cub of a boy of his.  When I came in, he swore, the innkeeper swore, the whole crew swore, I was Mar.  The fool of an officer arrested me.”

I expected Mayenne to burst out laughing in Lucas’s chagrined face.  But instead he seemed less struck with his nephew’s misfortunes than with some other aspect of the affair.  He said slowly: 

“You told Belin this arrest was my desire?”

“I may have implied something of the sort.”

“You repeated it to the arresting officer before Mar’s boy!”

“I had no time to say anything before they hustled me off,” Lucas exclaimed.  “Mille tonnerres!  Never had any man such luck as I. It’s enough to make me sign papers with the devil.”

“Mar would believe I had broken faith with him?”

“I dare say.  One isn’t responsible for what Mar believes,” Lucas answered carelessly.

Mayenne was silent, with knit brows, drumming his hand on the table.  Lucas went on with the tale of his woes: 

“At the Bastille, I ordered the commissary to send to you.  He did not; he sent to Belin.  Belin was busy, didn’t understand the message, wouldn’t be bothered.  I lay in my cell like a mouse in a trap till an hour agone, when at last he saw fit to appear—­damn him!”

Mayenne fell to laughing.  Lucas cried out: 

“When they arrested me my first thought was that this was your work.”

“In that case, how should you be free now?”