“Mademoiselle, this is a minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary—­most extraordinary—­from the court of his Highness the Comte de Mar.”

“Oh, that is it!” she cried with a little laugh, but not, I think, at my uncouthness, though she looked me over curiously.

“He has not come himself, M. de Mar?”

“It appears not, mademoiselle.”

She did not seem vastly disconcerted for all she cried in doleful tones: 

“Alack! alack!  I have lost.  And Paul is not present to enjoy his triumph.  He wagered me a pair of pearl-broidered gloves that I could not produce M. de Mar.”

“But it is not his fault,” I answered her, eagerly.  “It is not M. de Mar’s fault, mademoiselle.  He has been hurt to-day, and he could not come.  He is in bed of his wounds; he could not walk across his room.  He tried.  He bade me lay at mademoiselle’s feet his lifelong services.”

“Ah, Lorance!” cried a young demoiselle in a sky-coloured gown, “methinks you have indeed lost M. de Mar if he sends you no better messenger of his regrets than this horse-boy.”

“I have lost the gloves, that is certain and sad,” Mlle. de Montluc replied, as if the loss of the wager were all her care.  “I am punished for my vanity, mesdames et messieurs.  I undertook to produce my recreant squire and I have failed.  Alas!” And she put up her white hands before her face with a pretty imitation of despair, save that her eyes sparkled from between her fingers.

By this time the gamesters about us had stopped their play, in a general interest in the affair.  An older lady coming forward with an air of authority demanded: 

“What is this disturbance, Lorance?”

“A wager between me and my cousin Paul, madame,” she answered with instant gravity and respect.

“Paul de Lorraine!  Is he here?” the other asked, unpleased, I thought.

“Yes, madame.  He dropped from the skies on us this afternoon.  He is out of the house again now.”

“But while he was in the house,” quoth she in sky-colour, “though he did not find time to pay his respects to Mme. la Duchesse, he had the leisure for considerable conversation with Mlle. de Montluc.”

The other lady, whom I now guessed to be the Duchesse de Mayenne herself, turned somewhat sharply on her cousin of Montluc.

“I do not yet hear your excuses, mademoiselle, for the introduction of a stable-boy into my salon.”

“I beg you to believe, madame, I am not responsible for it,” she protested.  “Paul, when he was here, saw fit to rally me concerning M. de Mar.  Mlle. de Tavanne informed him of the count’s defection and they were pleased to be merry with me over it.  I vowed I could get him back if I wished.  The end of the matter was that I wrote a letter which my cousin promised to have conveyed to M. le Comte’s old lodgings.  This is the answer,” mademoiselle cried, with a wave of her hand toward me.  “But I did not expect it in this guise, madame.  Blame your lackeys who know not their duties, not me.”