“By and by, the world as contrived by man shows her many loopholes through which she may pass without disturbing her conscience.  Ah, but these steps are so imperceptible that one does not perceive how far one goes till one looks back to find the way closed.  Behold the irony of fate!  During the second year Monsieur le Comte falls in love with one of Scudery’s actresses, and, commits all sorts of follies for her sake.  Ah well, there were gallants enough.  And one found favor in madame’s eyes; at least, so it seemed to him.  In the summer months they promenaded the gardens of La Place Royale, on the Cours de la Reine, always at dusk.  When it grew colder this gallant, who was of a poetical turn of mind, read her verses from Voiture, Malherbe, or Ronsard . . .”

“Not to mention Saumaise,” said the Chevalier.

“He was usually seated at her feet in her boudoir.  Sometimes they discussed the merits of Ronsard, or a novel by the Marquis d’Urfe.  On my word of honor, Paul, to kiss her hand was the limit of my courage.  She fascinated; her eyes were pitfalls; men looked into them but to tumble in.  Gay one moment, sad the next; a burst of sunshine, a cloud!”

“What! you are talking about yourself?” asked the Chevalier.  “Poet that you are, how well you tell a story!  And you feared to offend me?  I should have laughed.  Is she pretty?”

“She is like her mother when her mother was twenty:  the handsomest woman in Paris, which is to say, in all France.”

“And you love her?”

“So much as that your poet’s neck is very near the ax,” lowly.

“Eh?  What’s that?”

The poet glanced hastily about.  There was no one within hearing.  “I asked Mazarin for this mission simply because I feared to remain in Paris and dare not now return.  Your poet put his name upon a piece of paper which might have proved an epic but which has turned out to be pretty poor stuff.  This paper was in De Brissac’s care; was, I say, because it was missing the morning after his death.  To-morrow, a week or a month from now, Mazarin will have it.  And . . .”  Victor drew his finger across his throat.

“A conspiracy?  And you have put your name to it, you, who have never been more serious than a sonnet?  Were you mad, or drunk?”

“They call it madness.  Madame’s innocent eyes drew me into it.  I’ve only a vague idea what the conspiracy is about.  Not that madame knew what was going on.  Politics was a large word to her, embracing all those things which neither excited nor interested her.  Lord love you, there were a dozen besides myself, madame’s beauty being the magnet.”

“And the plot?”

“Mazarin’s abduction and forced resignation, Conde’s return from Spain and Gaston’s reinstatement at court.”

“And your reward?”

“Hang me!” with a comical expression, “I had forgotten all about that end of it.  A captaincy of some sort.  Devil take cabals!  And madame, finding out too late what had been going on, and having innocently attached her name to the paper, is gone from Paris, leaving advice for me to do the same.  So here I am, ready to cross into Spain the moment you set out for Paris.  Mazarin has taken it into his head to imitate Richelieu:  off with the head rather than let the state feed the stomach.”