"His Highness particularly said," observed the servant in a dry tone, "that he wished to converse with Monsieur de Logères alone."
The lute-player looked confounded and mortified; but Charles of Montsoreau, not a little pleased to be rid of his company, followed the attendant, and in a few moments was ushered into the Duke's cabinet. It was a small but somewhat lengthened octangular room, lined throughout with dark black oak, carved in the most exquisite manner. From the centre of the ceiling hung a silver chain, bearing a large lamp of the same material, with eight burners. At the further end of the room was the fireplace, and in the midst a small table with two covers and a number of dishes and cups of silver, some plain, some jewelled at the rim.
The Duke himself was standing at the farther side with his back to the fire, reading a letter by the light of a small lamp which shed its rays over his shoulder; and certainly as he stood there, now dressed in the magnificent costume of those days, partially reclining against the projecting chimney, with the letter raised in his hand, the light of the lamp streaming over his shoulder, but catching brightly upon his cheek and lip, and on the rich brown beard and mustachio, with the deep carved oak behind him, and a certain sort of gloomy splendour round that part of the room, there probably never was any thing so graceful, so princely, so dignified, as his whole appearance.
He folded up the letter as soon as Charles of Montsoreau's step sounded in the cabinet, and banishing a slight frown which had been upon his brow while reading, he advanced to the table with a smile saying, "Our viands are getting cold, Monsieur le Comte."
"I went into the usual hall," replied the young nobleman, "not knowing where to find your Highness, and fearful of intruding upon you."
"I should have told you, I should have told you, dear friend," replied the Duke: "when I wish to have an hour in private for conversation with any of my most confidential friends, I sup in my own cabinet, which is the only place to which my worthy countrymen and acquaintances will grant the right of sanctuary.--Now Martinez," he continued, speaking to the servant, "uncover the dishes, put us down some good wine, bring me in a naquet to hold our dirty platters, and then leave us."
"The attendant did as he was commanded, removed the tops of the dishes, put several bottles of wine down by the side of the Duke, and after bringing in a sort of buffet on a small scale, somewhat like what we now call a dumb waiter, but which was then called by the name of naquet, (though that word was only properly applied to the marker of a tennis-court), he retired, shutting the door closely behind him.
"This is an hour of relief," said the Duke, as soon as the man was gone; "for our business to-night, dear count, must of course be light and easy to us both--light to you, because you have nothing to do but to express your wishes and desires to Henry of Guise, and light to me, as nothing can be more joyful to my heart than to show my gratitude for the services that you have rendered me, and to express, in every manner in my power, my esteem and regard for yourself, and my admiration for your conduct."[[3]]
"Oh, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau, "I thought you had forgotten by this time to use such high-flown expressions towards me."
"Call them not high-flown, good friend," replied the Duke: "persons situated as I am, dealing with and often obliged of sheer necessity to excite the worst passions of our fellow-creatures, meet so rarely with frank, disinterested service, that when it comes upon us in the sudden way that yours has come upon me, without claim, without expectation, without any previous notice, it strikes us as something both wonderful and beautiful; and we admire, as we would the visit of an angel, that which gives us a view of a fairer state of being than the one with which our daily thoughts are familiar. Besides, if I must own the truth, too, there was something in the frankness--some of my adulators would call it the bluntness--with which you dealt with me in the little inn at Mareuil, evidently knowing me all the time, but still treating me as the comrade of an inn dining-room, which, as you may suppose, struck me not a little. But a truce to all fine speeches: let us begin our supper; and after doing justice to what Maître Lanecque has set before us, we will discuss the matter further at our ease."