“No,” I said, with conviction. “We have known each other long and long, only fate held us apart. Now we can laugh at fate.”
“Yes. But the story.”
“Very well—the story.”
“And, mind—no skipping!” she cried, shaking her finger at me warningly. “I must have every word.”
Who, looking deep into her eyes, could have lacked inspiration?
CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH I COME TO PARIS
But it was not to tell that story I set pen to paper. Indeed, it were scarce worth the telling, save to sympathetic ears, such as were those tiny pink ones into which I poured it that morning.
Yet, two words about it.
We of Marsan have not always been so poor. Time was, when, as fief of the house of Cauteret, we held broad fields and deep woods. Unfortunately, M. le Comte, being half-Spanish himself, was so foolish as to espouse the Spanish side in one of the innumerable intrigues against the thirteenth Louis—they trod so fast upon each other’s heels that I never knew just which it was. At any rate, in the event, M. le Comte was fain to seek safety on his wife’s estates at Valladolid, and rode away merrily enough, little regretting France.
We le Moynes, though we had followed M. le Comte to battle as in duty bound, were honest enough to refuse to change our French coats for Spanish ones, and so remained behind. We were too small fry to attract the displeasure of the King, who had a host of greater cares to worry him, so we were left to follow our own devices and keep ourselves from starving as best we might.