He fell silent, gnawing his lip; I could see that his thought had travelled away from the plot to the sore subject of mademoiselle's affections.
"Well," said Mayenne, sharply, "what about your boy?"
It was a moment before Lucas answered. When he did he spoke low and hurriedly, so that I could scarce catch the words. I knew it was no fear of listeners that kept his voice down—they had shouted at each other as if there was no one within a mile. I guessed that Lucas, for all his bravado, took little pride in his tale, nor felt happy about its reception. I could catch names now and then, Monsieur's, M. Étienne's, Grammont's, but the hero of the tale was myself.
"You let him to the duke?" Mayenne cried presently.
At the harsh censure of his voice, Lucas's rang out with the old defiance:
"With Vigo at his back I did. Sangdieu! you have yet to make the acquaintance of St. Quentin's equery. A regiment of your lansquenets couldn't keep him out."
"Does he never take wine?" Mayenne asked, lifting his hand with shut fingers over the table and then opening them.
"That is easy to say, monsieur, sitting here in your own hôtel stuffed with your soldiers. But it was not so easy to do, alone in my enemy's house, when at the least suspicion of me they had broken me on the wheel."
"That is the rub!" Mayenne cried violently. "That is the trouble with all of you. You think more of the safety of your own skins than of accomplishing your work. Mordieu! where should I be to-day—where would the Cause be—if my first care was my own peril?"
"Then that is where we differ, uncle," Lucas answered with a cold sneer. "You are, it is well known, a patriot, toiling for the Church and the King of Spain, with never a thought for the welfare of Charles of Lorraine, Lord of Mayenne. But I, Paul of Lorraine, your humble nephew, lord of my brain and hands, freely admit that I am toiling for no one but the aforesaid Paul of Lorraine. I should find it most inconvenient to get on without a head on my shoulders, and I shall do my best to keep it there."