Mademoiselle glanced at me with hard blue eyes.

“That is the greatest insult of all,” she said.  “I could forgive—­and forget—­his absence; but I do not forgive his despatching me his horse-boy.”

Thus far I had choked down my swelling rage at her faithlessness, her vanity, her despiteful entreatment of my master’s plight.  I knew it was sheer madness for me to attempt his defence before this hostile company; nay, there was no object in defending him; there was not one here who cared to hear good of him.  But at her last insult to him my blood boiled so hot that I lost all command of myself, and I burst out: 

“If I were a horse-boy,—­which I am not,—­I were twenty times too good to be carrying messages hither.  You need not rail at his poverty, mademoiselle; it was you brought him to it.  It was for you he was turned out of his father’s house.  But for you he would not now be lying in a garret, penniless and dishonoured.  Whatever ills he suffers, it is you and your false house have brought them.”

Brie had me by the throat.  Mayenne interfered without excitement.

“Don’t strangle him, Francois; I may need him later.  Let him be flogged and locked in the oratory.”

He turned away as one bored over a trifling matter.  And as the lackeys dragged me back to the door, I heard Mlle. de Montluc saying: 

“Oh, M. de Latour, what have I done in destroying your knave of diamonds!  Ma foi, you had a quatorze!”

XIV

In the oratory.

“Here, Pierre!” M. de Brie called to the head lackey, “here’s a candidate for a hiding.  This is a cub of that fellow Mar’s.  He reckoned wrong when he brought his insolence into this house.  Lay on well, boys; make him howl.”

Brie would have liked well enough, I fancy, to come along and see the fun, but he conceived that his duty lay in the salon.  Pierre, the same who had conducted me to Mlle. de Montluc, now led the way into a long oak-panelled parlour.  Opposite the entrance was a huge chimney carved with the arms of Lorraine; at one end a door led into a little oratory where tapers burned before the image of the Virgin; at the other, before the two narrow windows, stood a long table with writing-materials.  Chests and cupboards nearly filled the walls.  I took this to be a sort of council-room of my Lord Mayenne.

Pierre sent one of his men for a cane and to the other suggested that he should quench the Virgin’s candles.

“For I don’t see why this rascal should have the comfort of a light in there,” he said.  “As for Madonna Mary, she will not mind; she has a million others to see by.”

I was left alone with him and I promised myself the joy of one good blow at his face, no matter how deep they flayed me for it.  But as I gathered myself for the rush he spoke to me low and cautiously: 

“Now howl your loudest, lad; and I’ll not lay on too hard.”