"Monsieur," I bemoaned miserably, "I shall never come through it alive, never in the world. They will know me in the flick of an eye for a boy; I know they will. Why, the folk we are passing can see something wrong; they all are staring at me."
"Of course they stare," he answered tranquilly. "I should think some wrong if they did not. Can your modesty never understand, my Giulietta, what a pretty lass you are?"
He fell to laughing at my discomfort, and thus, he full of gay confidence, I full of misgiving, we came before the doors of the Hôtel de Lorraine.
"Courage," he whispered to me. "Courage will conquer the devil himself. Put a good face on it and take the plunge." The next moment he was in the archway, deluging the sentry with his rapid Italian.
"Nom d'un chien! What's all this? What are you after?" the man shouted at us, to make us understand the better. "Haven't you a word of honest French in your head?"
M. Étienne, tapping his box, very brokenly, very laboriously stammered forth something about jewels for the ladies.
"Get in with you, then."
We were not slow to obey.
The courtyard was deserted, nor did we see any one in the windows of the house, against which the afternoon sun struck hotly. To keep out his unwelcome rays, the house door was pushed almost shut. We paused a moment on the step, to listen to the voices of gossiping lackeys within, and then M. Étienne boldly knocked.
There was a scurrying in the hall, as if half a dozen idlers were plunging into their doublets and running to their places. Then my good friend Pierre opened the door. In the row of underlings at his back I recognized the two who had taken part in my flogging. The cold sweat broke out upon me lest they in their turn should know me.