The sun was clean up over the horizon, and as I blinked and wondered how he had contrived the feat so quickly, my two messieurs came hand in hand round the corner to me, the level rays glittering on Monsieur's burnished breastplate, on M. Étienne's bright head, and on both their shining faces. Now that for the first time I saw them together, I found them, despite the dark hair and the yellow, the brown eyes and the gray, wonderfully alike. There was the same carriage, the same cock of the head, the same smile. If I had not known before, I knew now, the instant I looked at them, that the quarrel was over. Save as it gave them a deeper love of each other, it might never have been.
I sprang up, and Monsieur, my duke, embraced me.
"Lucky we came up the lane when we did, eh, Félix?" M. Étienne said. "But, Monsieur, I have not asked you yet what madness sent you traversing this back passage at two in the morning."
"I might ask you that, Étienne."
The young man hesitated a bare moment before he answered:
"I am just come from serenading Mlle. de Montluc."
A shade fell over Monsieur's radiance. At his look, M. Étienne cried out:
"I've told you I'm no Leaguer! Mayenne offered me mademoiselle if I would come over. I refused. Last night he sent me word that he would kill me as a common nuisance if I sought to see her. That was why I tried."
"Monsieur," I cried, curiosity mastering me, "was she in the window?"
He shook his head, his eyes on his father' face.