“Let me tell you, then, for you need no excuse,” stammered the poet.  “I live in the top floor—­the small room where the stairs turn.”

“In the front room?” asked the lady, turning her head sidewise.

“The rear, madame.”

The lady sighed, as if with relief.

“I will detain you no longer then, monsieur,” she said, employing the round and artless eye.  “Take good care of my house.  Alas! only the memories of it are mine now.  Adieu, and accept my thanks for your courtesy.”

She was gone, leaving but a smile and a trace of sweet perfume.  David climbed the stairs as one in slumber.  But he awoke from it, and the smile and the perfume lingered with him and never afterward did either seem quite to leave him.  This lady of whom he knew nothing drove him to lyrics of eyes, chansons of swiftly conceived love, odes to curling hair, and sonnets to slippers on slender feet.

Poet he must have been, for Yvonne was forgotten; this fine, new loveliness held him with its freshness and grace.  The subtle perfume about her filled him with strange emotions.

On a certain night three persons were gathered about a table in a room on the third floor of the same house.  Three chairs and the table and a lighted candle upon it was all the furniture.  One of the persons was a huge man, dressed in black.  His expression was one of sneering pride.  The ends of his upturned moustache reached nearly to his mocking eyes.  Another was a lady, young and beautiful, with eyes that could be round and artless, as a child’s, or long and cozening, like a gypsy’s, but were now keen and ambitious, like any other conspirator’s.  The third was a man of action, a combatant, a bold and impatient executive, breathing fire and steel.  He was addressed by the others as Captain Desrolles.

This man struck the table with his fist, and said, with controlled violence: 

“To-night.  To-night as he goes to midnight mass.  I am tired of the plotting that gets nowhere.  I am sick of signals and ciphers and secret meetings and such baragouin.  Let us be honest traitors.  If France is to be rid of him, let us kill in the open, and not hunt with snares and traps.  To-night, I say.  I back my words.  My hand will do the deed.  To-night, as he goes to mass.”

The lady turned upon him a cordial look.  Woman, however wedded to plots, must ever thus bow to rash courage.  The big man stroked his upturned moustache.

“Dear captain,” he said, in a great voice, softened by habit, “this time I agree with you.  Nothing is to be gained by waiting.  Enough of the palace guards belong to us to make the endeavour a safe one.”

“To-night,” repeated Captain Desrolles, again striking the table.  “You have heard me, marquis; my hand will do the deed.”

“But now,” said the huge man, softly, “comes a question.  Word must be sent to our partisans in the palace, and a signal agreed upon.  Our stanchest men must accompany the royal carriage.  At this hour what messenger can penetrate so far as the south doorway?  Ribouet is stationed there; once a message is placed in his hands, all will go well.”