Scarlet under the lash, M. Etienne, kneeling, bent his eyes on the ground.  He was silent, but as the king spoke not, he felt it incumbent to stammer something: 

“That is my life’s misfortune, Sire.”

“Misfortune, sirrah?  Misfortune you call it?  Let me hear you say fault.”

“I dare not, Sire,” M. Etienne murmured.  “It was of course your Majesty’s fault.  We cannot serve heretics, we St. Quentins.”

“Ventre-saint-gris!  You think well of yourself, young Mar.”

“I must, Sire, when your Majesty invites me to dinner.”

The king burst into laughter, and his temper, which I believe was all a play, vanished to the winds.

“Pardieu! you’re a glib fellow, Mar.  But I didn’t invite you to dinner for your own sake, little as you can imagine it.  So you would have joined my flag four years ago, had I not been a stinking heretic?”

“Aye, Sire, I needs must have.  Therefore am I everlastingly beholden to your Majesty for remaining so long a Huguenot.”

“How now, cockerel?”

M. Etienne faltered a moment.  He was not burdened by shyness, but before the king’s sharp glance he underwent a cold terror lest he had been too free with his tongue.  However, there was naught to do but go on.

“Sire, had I fought under your banner like a man, at Dieppe and Arques and Ivry, M. de Mayenne had never dreamed of marrying his ward to me.  I had never known her.”

“The loveliest demoiselle I ever saw!” the king cried.  “I shall marry her to one of my staunchest supporters.”

[Illustration:  THE MEETING.]

The smile was washed from M. Etienne’s lips.  He turned as white as linen.  In one moment his youth seemed to go from him.  The king, unnoting, picked a parchment off the table.

“To one of my bravest captains.  Here’s his commission, my lad.”

M. Etienne stared up from the writing into the king’s laughing face.

“I, Sire?  I?”

“You, Mar, you.  You are my staunch supporter, perhaps?”

“Your horse-boy, an you ask it, Sire!”

He pressed his lips to the king’s hand, great, helpless tears dripping down upon it.

“If I ever desert you, I am a dog, Sire!  But the fighting is not all done.  I will capture you a flag yet.”

“Perhaps.  I much fear me there’s life in Mayenne still.”

M. Etienne, not venturing to rise, yet lifted beseeching eyes to the king’s.

“What! you want to get away from me, ventre-saint-gris!”

My lord, who wanted precisely that, had no choice but to protest that nothing was farther from his thoughts.

“Stuff!” the king exclaimed.  “You’re in a sweat to be gone, you unmannerly churl!  You, a raw, untried boy, are invited to dine with the king, and your one itch is to escape the tedium!”

“Sire—­”

“Peace!  You are guilty, sirrah.  Take your punishment!”