'The people of Cambray will wish to see Your Highness with Madame Jacqueline by your side—her hand in yours—in token of an irrevocable pledge.'
'Starving people care little for such flummery, Messire. They will prefer to see the sentimental ceremony when mine armies have driven the foe from their city's gates.'
'But——'
'Ah, ça, Messeigneurs!' suddenly queried Gilles with growing impatience. 'Do you, perchance, mistrust me?'
The protest which came from the two Flemish lords in response to this suggestion was not perhaps as whole-hearted as it might have been. Gilles frowned beneath his mask. Here was a complication which he had not foreseen. He could part from Jacqueline—yes!—he could tear her sweet image from out his heart, since she could never become his. He could play his part in the odious comedy to the end—but only on the condition that he should not see her again or attempt to carry through the deception which, in her presence, would anyhow be foredoomed to failure.
A public betrothal! A solemn presentation to the people, with Jacqueline's hand in his own, her dear eyes having found him out in the very first minute that they met again, despite every mask, every disguise and every trickery! Heavens above! but there was a limit to human endurance! and Gilles had already reached it, when he envisaged his beloved as the wife of another man—and that man wholly unworthy of her. Now he had come to the end of his submission. Honour and loyalty could go no further.
Of a truth, it seemed as if some impish Fate would upset, at this eleventh hour, Madame la Reyne's perfectly laid schemes. The Flemish lords looked obstinate. It seemed to Gilles that while he himself had stood silent for the space of a quick heart-beat, cogitating as to his next course of action, a secret understanding had quickly passed between the two men.
This in its turn had the effect of stiffening Gilles' temper. He felt like a gambler now, whose final stake was in jeopardy.
'For my part, Messeigneurs,' he said with a clever assumption of haughty insolence, 'I could not lend myself to a public pageant at this hour. His Majesty my brother would not wish it. When I enter Cambray as its conqueror I will claim my promised bride—and not before.'
This final 'either—or' was a bold stroke, no doubt: the losing gambler's last throw. If the Flemings demurred, all was lost. Gilles, by an almost superhuman effort, contrived to remain outwardly calm, keeping up that air of supercilious carelessness which had all along kept the Flemish lords on tenterhooks. Obviously the tone had aroused their ire, just as it had done many a time before, and Gilles could see well enough that a final repudiation of the whole bargain hovered on M. d'Inchy's lips. But once again the counsels of prudence prevailed; the implied 'take it or leave it,' so insolently spoken by Monsieur, had the effect of softening the two men's obstinacy. Perhaps they both felt that matters had anyhow gone too far, even for a man of Monsieur's vacillating temperament to withdraw from the bargain with a shred of honour. Be that as it may, when Gilles rejoined a moment or two later with marked impatience: 'Which is it to be, Messire? Is a Prince of the House of Valois not to be trusted to keep his word?' d'Inchy replied quite glibly: