"You might as well have stayed away as come at this hour. Marry, all's over! Go hang yourself, my breathless follower! We have fought all our great battles, and you were not there!"
Scarlet under the lash, M. Étienne, kneeling, bent his eyes on the ground. He was silent, but as the king spoke not, he felt it incumbent to stammer something:
"That is my life's misfortune, Sire."
"Misfortune, sirrah? Misfortune you call it? Let me hear you say fault."
"I dare not, Sire," M. Étienne murmured. "It was of course your Majesty's fault. We cannot serve heretics, we St. Quentins."
"Ventre-saint-gris! You think well of yourself, young Mar."
"I must, Sire, when your Majesty invites me to dinner."
The king burst into laughter, and his temper, which I believe was all a play, vanished to the winds.
"Pardieu! you're a glib fellow, Mar. But I didn't invite you to dinner for your own sake, little as you can imagine it. So you would have joined my flag four years ago, had I not been a stinking heretic?"
"Aye, Sire, I needs must have. Therefore am I everlastingly beholden to your Majesty for remaining so long a Huguenot."