"Like Master Marcel, I believe him sincere. Not that I trust in the heart of that royal stripling, but because it is to his interest to follow wise counsel."
"Hm! Hm! To me it looks as if he is playing a comedy. A prince's word is poor guarantee."
"Do you imagine the Regent is so double-faced or so foolish as to try to deceive Master Marcel?"
"As true as Homer is the king of rhapsodists, never was my wench Margot about to play me some scurvy trick without she called me her 'musk-rat,' her 'beautiful king,' her 'gold canary,' and other names no less flattering than deceitful."
"But what connection is there between Margot and the Regent? Quit your fooling!"
"Listen to me to the end. I happen to have an assignment with her for this evening near the Louvre, on the river bank, because by what she says, her friend Jeannette does not want to see me at her house. Very well. I swear by Ovid, the poet beloved of Cupid, Margot acted the gentle puss and induced me to go and inhale the mists of the Seine simply because she had made up her mind to go elsewhere this evening."
"Rufin, let's talk seriously!"
"Seriously, Jocelyn. I fear that the promises of the Regent are like those of Margot! I can assure you, much as the sword thrust I received smarts me devilishly, I would have preferred having pocketed one more in return for having settled the accounts of that puling youngster as I did the accounts of the marshal of Normandy."
"Come, now! Those are excesses worthy only of John Maillart.... But, by the way, did he accompany us hither?"
"No. After he had, despite all your and Marcel's entreaties, driven a few miserable brutes to massacre Master Dubreuil when he crossed our march on his mule, Maillart disappeared. I place no reliance on him. Heaven and earth! That murder was deplorable! The marshals of Normandy and Champagne were enough——"