Enough! For more I dare not tell. Glad life, and lusty reign!
Predestined Prince, and fare thee well!—till we shall meet again!”
In five minutes all were once more in the open air. The Regent, grave and preoccupied, spoke not a word while they passed swiftly through the wood to gain their carriage; but Bras-de-Fer whispered in his comrade’s ear, “It seems the devil is like the rest, and had rather not come to close quarters with the Grey Musketeers.” To which professional remark Captain George replied, thoughtfully—
“He is an adversary for whom I would choose a weapon that kept me as far off him as possible!”
CHAPTER XVII
A QUIET SUPPER
In less than an hour, how changed the scene for two of the actors in that mysterious drama—of which Bartoletti was chief manager and Malletort sat in the prompter’s box! The Captain of Musketeers had been invited to sup with the Regent, and found in his prince’s private apartments a little party collected, whose mirth and high spirits were well calculated to drive away any remains of superstitious gloom left by the incantations of the cavern and their result.
The select suppers of the Duke of Orleans were conducted with an absence of ceremony or restraint that indeed degenerated on occasion into the grossest license; but even under the Regency men did not necessarily conclude every night in the week with an orgy, and the mirth of the roués themselves was not always degraded into drunkenness, nor their wit pushed to profanity and shameless indecency of speech.
Captain George found himself seated at a round table in an oval room, of which the only other occupants, besides his royal host, were Madame de Parabére, Madame de Sabran, Malletort, and Count Point d’Appui. The latter, be it observed, excelled (for no one was admitted to these reunions who had not some marked speciality) in the grace with which he danced a minuet and the gravity with which he propounded the emptiest and silliest remarks. Some of the courtiers affected to think this simplicity only masked an intriguing disposition, and that Point d’Appui was, after all “not quite such a fool as he looked.” A charitable suggestion, endorsed by Madame de Sabran, with the observation, “The saints forbid he should be!”