'Alas, no!' rejoined de Lalain ruefully. 'For of a truth I cannot bring myself to believe in Orange as the saviour of the Netherlands. He thinks that he can rally the burghers and the mass of the people to his standard. But I doubt it. And if he fails in his present campaign we shall all fall into a veritable abyss of humiliation and dependence on those abominable Spaniards—far worse than ever before.'

'And all our friends think the same, as you well know, my good de Lalain,' continued d'Inchy firmly. 'An alliance with a prince of the House of France is safer than a submission to the leadership of Orange. We want the help of France; we want her well-trained armies, her capable generals, the weight of her wealth and influence to drive the Spaniards out of our provinces. Elizabeth of England promises much but holds little. She is on the side of Orange. I am on the side of France.'

'So am I, my good d'Inchy,' rejoined de Lalain; 'else I had never consented to the Queen of Navarre's madcap scheme.'

'Nor I,' concluded d'Inchy with the solemn earnestness of political fanaticism. 'So why all these misgivings, my good friend?'

'Was it fair to the girl?' murmured the other almost involuntarily. 'Monsieur is as fickle as he is unprincipled. Had we the right to toy with a woman's heart—a young girl's—our kinswoman——?'

'You wrong Jacqueline by such doubts, my friend. She is not a child nor yet an irresponsible girl. She knows that her person and her fortune are powerful assets in the future of her country. She is a patriot, and will never allow sentiment to overrule her duty.'

Perhaps de Lalain would have liked to continue the argument. Obviously his conscience was smiting him a little now that the curtain had actually rung up on the first act of the foolish adventure. The ill-fame of the Valois prince had preceded him long ago. De Lalain knew—and so did d'Inchy, so did de Montigny—that Monsieur was both profligate and faithless. He, like the others, had entered into a bargain with one whom they could never trust. Was it fair? Was it just? Would God's blessing descend upon the proposed Kingdom of the Netherlands if its foundations rested on so infamous a base? And yet de Lalain, though conscious of that vague feeling of remorse, had no thought of turning back. Even now, as a tall, masked figure appeared under the lintel of the door in the wake of the usher, and then stepped boldly into the room, he made a great effort to control his resentment. Though his hand ached to drag the mask away from the man's face, to try and read him eye to eye, his reason re-asserted itself, re-adjusted his thoughts and his sentiments. 'This,' it whispered insistently, 'this man who has come to Cambray masked and disguised, is a prince of the House of France. If he approve of the beautiful Flemish heiress and consents to take her for wife, the future of the Netherlands is assured, even though he were twenty times as base as he is depicted.'

And reason gained the victory. D'Inchy already had gone a few steps forward in order to greet his exalted visitor. De Lalain composed himself too, even paid an involuntary tribute of admiration to that tall and martial-looking figure which enshrined, so rumour had it, a soul that was both weak and false.

III

And Messire Gilles de Crohin, the penniless soldier of fortune, the mountebank set to play an unworthy part, was greeted by these two proud Flemish nobles with all the respect due to a prince of the House of France. And indeed there was nothing mean or humble about his appearance even though he had come to Cambray with only one man to serve him, and that man a rough and uncouth soldier with a ludicrous stutter which would at once have provoked the gibes of Monseigneur, the governor's servants, but for the fact that Maître Jehan's fists appeared as hard and harder than their heads, and that his temper was so hot that he had already put the first scoffers to flight by the mere rolling of his eyes. He was standing at this precise moment immediately behind his master, and as soon as the usher had withdrawn and the door been closed, he slipped quite unostentatiously into the nearest corner and remained there, with his eyes fixed on Messire like a faithful watch-dog, silent and keen.