"He did indeed, though," replied Villequier with a meditative air. "And so this was the Abbé de Boisguerin. One would have thought the army, rather than the church, would have called such a spirit to itself."
"I know not," replied the young Marquis, "but in all things he is equally skilful; and, doubtless, you know he has taken but the first step towards entering the church, pausing as it were even on the threshold."
"Do you think," said Villequier, "that he is as skilful in conveying intelligence as in other things?"
"What do you mean, my Lord?" exclaimed his young companion.
"Nay, I mean nothing," replied the politician, satisfied with having sown the first seed of suspicion in the young nobleman's mind, without, perhaps, any definite design, but simply for the universal purpose of making men doubt and distrust each other, with a view of ruling them more easily. "Nothing, except a mere question concerning his skill. I have no latent meaning, I assure you."
The brow of the Marquis grew clear again, and Villequier saw that he believed the latter assertion more fully than he had intended. He let the subject pass, however, and spoke of many other things, giving his own account of various matters which had occurred during the Count de Logères's audience of the King, and urging Gaspar de Montsoreau to set off with all speed to raise his forces in his native province. Then abruptly turning the conversation, he demanded, "You or the Abbé told me, I think, that you suspected your brother of having communicated your march to the reiters. Is it like his general character so to act? I'm sure, if it be his custom to do such things, I would much rather that he was upon the opposite party than our own."
The Marquis bent down his head, and gazed sternly upon the ground for two or three moments. He then answered, with a deep sigh, "No, Monsieur de Villequier; no, it is not like Charles's character. He has all his life been frank and free as the summer air, open, and generous. I fear I did him wrong to suspect him. We are rivals where no man admits of rivalry: but I must do him justice. If he have done such a thing, his nature must be changed, changed indeed--changed, perhaps, as much as my own."
"I thought," replied Villequier, "that he seemed frank and straightforward enough, bold and haughty as a lion; gave the King look for look; bearded Epernon, and threatened to bring him to the field; and spared not me myself, whom men don't for some reason love to offend. But he did not seem a man likely to betray his friend, or practise treachery upon his brother. It is a very strange thing, too," he continued in an easier tone, "that Colombel and the other officers of the King's troops at Château Thierry should have received news of your coming a day before you did cross the Marne, together with the information that the reiters might attack you near Gandelu. Was not this strange?"
"Most strange," replied the Marquis, knitting his brows, and setting his teeth hard. But Villequier, now seeing that he had said quite enough, again turned the conversation; and after letting it subside naturally to ordinary subjects, he told the young Marquis that he would immediately write to the King, and obtain his signature to the paper required, before bed-time. "It is late already," he said; "I think even now I see a shade in the sky, so I must about my work rapidly. But remember, Monsieur de Montsoreau, nine is my supper hour exactly; and then, care and labour being past, we will sit down and enjoy ourselves, though I fear the accommodation which I can offer you in my poor dwelling must seem but rude in your eyes."
The Marquis said all that such a speech required, and then withdrew.