"Rather a Cyclopean labour," remarked D'Aubin; "rather a Cyclopean labour I suspect! especially since Harry of Valois, to whom you deny the crown, has chosen to turn up his hat with a Huguenot button."
"We shall see, we shall see!" replied the Duchess: "I know, sir Count, you laugh at all parties; so I understand not why you should cling so fondly to the rabble of accursed murderers and heretics, who lie out there at St. Cloud, like vipers in a garden."
D'Aubin laughed outright at the Duchess's vehemence, and reminded her that some of her near relations were amongst the rabble she so qualified.
"They are none the less vipers for that," she replied: and the conversation taking a turn neither very wise nor very decent, may as well be omitted in this place. It lingered on, however, from minute to minute, without the Duchess making any apparent effort to fulfil the promise she had made to D'Aubin, and send away the idlers by whom she was surrounded. Too long accustomed to the intriguing society of Paris, and too well acquainted with the character of the wily woman with whom he had now to deal, not to be armed at all points against every art and deception, D'Aubin began to suspect that the Duchess was trifling with him for some particular purpose, and was seeking to occupy him with other matters, till some moment of importance, to himself or his cousin, was irretrievably lost.
"Hark!" he exclaimed, as this thought crossed his mind; "there is the clock of St. Gervais striking one, and I must really seek my lord the Duke."
"I hear no clock," replied the Duchess--nor could she, for none had struck--"I hear no clock! But not yet, D'Aubin, not yet; I am not yet going to slip the jesses of my faucon gentil, after having just recovered him from so long a flight. Stay you with me, D'Aubin, and I will send and see if my brother be within. You go, Mont-Augier," she added, turning to one of the young cavaliers, who instantly sprang to obey her; but, ere he reached the door, the Duchess, by a sudden movement, placed herself near him; and, while D'Aubin was for a moment occupied by some other person present, she said, in a low voice, "Do not return, do not return: we must keep the Count away from Mayenne, or they will together spoil some of our best schemes."
D'Aubin's eye turned upon her; and his quick suspicions might have gone far to counteract her purposes, had not Madame de Montpensier, almost as soon as Mont-Augier's back was turned, contrived, on various pretences, to dismiss the rest of her little court. Left thus alone with a fascinating and beautiful woman, who condescended to court his society, D'Aubin could not resist the temptation to trifle away with her half an hour of invaluable time, though he knew all her arts, and even suspected that, on the present occasion, they were employed against him for insidious purposes. He was on the watch, however, and, ere long, the clatter of many horses' feet in the court-yard caught his attention, and led him instantly to conclude that the Duke of Mayenne was about to go forth, without having seen him. It was now all in vain that Madame de Montpensier, who likewise heard the sounds, and attributed them to the same cause, endeavoured to occupy his attention by every little art of coquetry. D'Aubin started up, and, in gay, but resolute terms, expressed his determination of seeing the Duke ere he left the house.
To what evasion Madame de Montpensier would have had recourse, is difficult to say; but, ere she could reply, the door opened, and a lady entered, whom we will not pause here to describe. Suffice it, that she was the widow of the murdered Duke of Guise, and that, though her person wore the weeds, her face betrayed few of the sorrows, of widowhood.
"Catherine! Catherine!" she exclaimed, entering; "there is our slow brother of Mayenne just returned, and calling for you so quickly that one would think he were himself as nimble as Harry of Navarre."
"Returned! I knew not that he was absent!" replied the Duchess de Montpensier, with an air of irrepressible mortification, on finding that all her arts had been thrown away, and, instead of preventing D'Aubin from seeing her brother ere he went forth, had only tended to keep the Count there till he returned. A meaning smile, too, on the lip of D'Aubin, served to increase her chagrin; and she exclaimed, with a slight touch of pettish impatience in her tone, "Well, well, I go to him; and you, my fair sister, had better stay and console this tiresome man, till my return."