In the hall the captain turned me over to a lackey who conducted me through a couple of antechambers to a curtained doorway whence issued a merry confusion of voices and laughter.  He passed in while I remained to undergo the scrutiny of the pair of flunkies whose repose we had invaded.  But in a moment my guide appeared again, lifting the curtain for me to enter.

The big room was ablaze with candles set in mirrored sconces along the walls, set also in silver candelabra on the tables.  There was a crowd of people in the place, a hundred it seemed to my dazzled eyes; grouped, most of them, about the tables set up and down, either taking hands themselves at cards or dice or betting on those who did.  Bluff soldiers in breastplate and jack-boots were not wanting in the throng, but the larger number of the gallants were brave in silken doublets and spotless ruffs, as became a noble’s drawing-room.  And the ladies! mordieu, what am I to say of them?  Tricked out in every gay colour under the sun, agleam with jewels—­eh bien, the ladies of St. Quentin, that I had thought so fine, were but serving-maids to these.

I stood blinking, dazed by the lights and the crowd and the chatter, unable in the first moment to note clearly any face in the congregation of strange countenances.  Nor would it have helped me if I could, for here close about were a dozen fair women, any one of whom might be Mlle. de Montluc.  My heart hammered in my throat.  I knew not whom to address.  But a young noble near by, dazzling in a suit of pink, took the burden on himself.

“I heard Mar’s name; yet you are not M. de Mar, I think.”

He spoke with a languid but none the less teasing derision.  In truth, I must have resembled a little brown hare suddenly turned out of a bag in the midst of that gorgeous company.

“No,” I stammered; “I am his servant.  I seek Mlle. de Montluc.”

“I have wondered what has become of Etienne de Mar this last month,” spoke a second young gentleman, advancing from his place behind a fair one’s chair.  He was neither so pretty nor so fine as the other, but in his short, stocky figure and square face there was a force which his comrade lacked.  He regarded me with a far keener glance as he asked: 

“Peste! he must be in low water if this is the best he can do for a lackey.”

“Perhaps the fellow’s errand is to beg an advance from Mlle. de Montluc,” suggested the pink youth.

“Who speaks my name?” a clear voice called; and a lady, laying down her hand at cards, rose and came toward me.

She was clad in amber satin.  She was tall, and she carried herself with stately grace.  Her black hair shadowed a cheek as purely white and pink as that of any yellow-locked Frisian girl, while her eyes, under their sooty lashes, shone blue as corn-flowers.

I began to understand M. Etienne.

“Who is it wants me?” she repeated, and catching sight of me stood regarding me in some surprise, not unfriendly, waiting for me to explain myself.  But before I could find my tongue the man in pink answered her with his soft drawl: