The Duchess of Guise saw that something had gone wrong; but D'Aubin laughed, and replied, as Madame de Montpensier turned towards the door, "May I request you to tell his Highness that the tiresome man waits an audience; and, as his business will be explained in few words, he will not detain the Duke so long as he has detained Madame de Montpensier,--or as, perhaps, I might say, more truly, Madame de Montpensier has detained him,--probably under a mistake;" and he made her a low and significant bow, to which she only replied by shaking her finger at him as she passed through the doorway.
"Where is the Duke?" she demanded eagerly of the pages in the corridor, who started up at her approach; and then, scarcely listening to their answer, she hurried on to the room in which she expected to find him, and opened the door without ceremony. The Duke was seated at a table, hastily sealing some letters, while a courier, booted, spurred, and armed, stood by his side, ready to bear them to their destinations as soon as the packets were complete.
"Why, how now, Catherine!" he exclaimed, turning towards her as she entered, and, in so doing, spilling the boiling wax over his broad hand, without suffering the pain to produce the slightest change of expression on his heavy, determined countenance; "why, how now, Catherine! you have been tampering, I find, with things wherein you have no right to meddle. What is this business about the young Marquis of St. Real? Is it not bad enough that that rash boy, Aumale, should lose me a battle beneath the walls of Senlis, without my sister losing me my honour?"
"Tush, nonsense, Duke of Mayenne!" replied his sister; "Nonsense, I tell you! If you intend that packet for Senlis, you may spare the wax, and your trouble, and your fingers, for it shall never go!"
"Indeed!" said the Duke, pressing firm upon it the broad seal of his arms; "indeed! and why not? Do you not know me better than that, my fair sister? Do you not know that my word, or my safe-conduct, was never in life violated by myself, and never shall be violated by any one else with impunity?"
"All very true! all very true, Charles of Mayenne!" she replied; "but, in the first place, I tell you that your safe-conduct cannot be said to be violated, because some friends of mine choose to help this young St. Real to pursue his journey on the very road for which the safe-conduct was given; and, in the second place, there is no use of sending to Mortfontaine or Nanteuil either, for within an hour St. Real will be, I trust, in Paris."
"Then within an hour he shall be set at liberty!" replied the Duke; "for I shall suffer no quibbling with my honour: he shall be free to come and free to go, till the term of the safe-conduct expires."
"Nonsense, nonsense, Charles!" replied the Duchess; "do not talk like the man in the mystery. Send this fellow away, and let me speak with you calmly; for here is the Count d'Aubin already in the house; and, if you go on vapouring in this way, you may miss a golden opportunity of gaining more than the battle of Senlis has lost."
The Duke made a sign for the courier to withdraw. "I know your skill well, Kate!" he said, as the man left the room, "and am far from wishing to counteract your views; but neither must you meddle with my schemes, nor affect my honour. Now let me hear what it is you have done, and what you propose to do."
"For the done first, then," replied Madame de Montpensier: "what I have done is simply this:--Hearing from good authority that this St. Real had left his troops under the command of his Lieutenant, and, while his cousin D'Aubin went to join Longueville, at Chantilly, had shown a strong inclination to seek the camp of the Henrys before he came to Paris, I thought it much better to change his destination, and bring him hither, well knowing that the first step is all. So much for the past! and now for the future. Leave him but in my hands two days; and if, in that time, I do not find a way, by one means or another, to make him put his hand to the Union, and draw his sword for Mayenne, why, set him free, in God's name! and then talk of your honour and your safe-conducts as much as you like. He shall be well and kindly treated, upon my word!"