On his return to the inn Hector told Paolo what had taken place.

“It is a pity that you did not kill them all, master.”

“Not at all, Paolo; had I done so every one of their friends would have been set against me.  Both these men are of good families, and will doubtless report that I had their lives at my mercy and spared them, and after that no gentleman of reputation would take the matter up.  I shall have to be very careful in future, but now that the duke has gone there is not likely to be any further trouble just at present.”

Paolo shook his head.  “Nay, master, I think the danger all the greater.  In the first place, we do not know that he has gone.  I think it far more likely that he is hiding in the house of one of his friends.  He has pretended to leave because he was sure the cardinal would take the matter up, and in order that, if he is absent from Paris when any harm befell you, it could not be brought home to him.  I do not suppose that next time he will employ any of his own people.  He is most popular among the mob of Paris, who call him the King of the Markets, and he will have no difficulty in getting as many daggers as he wishes from the scum of the faubourgs.  It would be difficult in the extreme to prove that he had aught to do with it, for you may be sure that he would really go down into the country with all speed the moment the deed was done.

“In future, master, you must not go out without having me close behind you; as for the others, I would put them in ordinary citizen garb, and let them follow some twenty yards behind, so as to be in readiness to run up at once.  They could carry swords openly, and have their pistols hidden under their doublets.”

“It might be as well, at any rate for the present.  If, as you think, Beaufort is hidden in Paris, it is certain he will lose no time.”

Paolo nodded.  “I will get the men disguises at once.  They had better be different; Macpherson can be dressed as a soldier, Nicholl as a burgher, and Sandy Grahame and Hunter as rough mechanics.  They, of course, could not carry swords, but might take heavy cudgels.  They would not walk together, or seem to have any knowledge of each other.  Sandy might be ten paces behind you, Nicholl twenty, and the others thirty, or where the street is wide they could keep abreast of you on the other side.  Are you going to the Louvre this evening?”

“Yes, the cardinal said that the queen wished that I should appear there.  I would much rather have stayed away, as doubtless the affair behind the Luxembourg will be generally known by this evening, and I shall feel my position a very unpleasant one, though I imagine that the queen intends, by her countenance of me, to show that I have not fallen into disgrace for duelling.”

Such was indeed the case.  All eyes were turned upon Hector when he entered the royal saloon.  Many of Mazarin’s friends came up and shook hands with him warmly, while the adherents of Beaufort and Vendome stood aloof from him with angry faces.  Presently the door opened, and the queen, closely followed by Mazarin and a train of ladies and gentlemen, entered.