"Oh, you Broux!" he cried out. "I have not seen you for half a year. I had forgotten that with you the St. Quentins rank with the saints."
"You—you are a hired servant. You come to Monsieur as you might come to anybody. With the Broux it is different," I retorted angrily. Yet I could not but know in my heart that any hired servant might have served Monsieur better than I. My boasted loyalty—what was it but lip-service? I said more humbly: "Pshaw! it is no great matter. Tell me about the quarrel."
"And so I will, if you're civil. In the first place, there was the question of M. le Comte's marriage."
"What! is he married?"
"Oh, by no means. Monsieur wouldn't have it. You see, Félix," Marcel said in a tone deep with importance, "we're Navarre's men now."
"Of course," said I.
"I suppose you would say 'of course' just like that to Mayenne himself. You greenhorn! It is as much as our lives are worth to side openly with Navarre. The League may attack us any day."
"I know," I said uneasily. Every chance word Marcel spoke seemed to dye my guilt the deeper. "But what has this to do with M. le Comte's marriage?" I asked him.
"Why, he was more than half a Leaguer. Perhaps he is one now. Some say he and Monsieur were at daggers drawn about politics; but I warrant it was about Mlle. de Montluc. They call her the Rose of Lorraine. She's the Duke of Mayenne's own cousin and housemate. And we're king's men, so of course it was no match for Monsieur's son. They say Mayenne himself favoured the marriage, but our duke wouldn't hear of it. However, the backbone of the trouble was M. de Grammont."
"And who may he be?"