"He has done somewhat, he has done somewhat," replied the prince; "and he deals liberally himself; but he is obliged to negotiate on my part with Jews and Lombards innumerable, and he has now gone to Paris with but small hope of getting their bills discounted except at exorbitant interest."
The news of Martin Vern having quitted the camp without giving me any acknowledgment whatever for the money he had received from me, was, as may be imagined, not very satisfactory to me; and I remained musing for a moment or two, while the prince wrote the order that I had demanded, and made some memorandums in regard to what was to be done in carrying it into execution.
"Come, De Cerons," he said, in a light tone, after he had done, "you seem sad, my good friend. Kneel down here. We will make a knight of you before we part, as young knights, they say, are always gay-hearted. Condé shall strike the stroke, Montgomery shall buckle on the spurs, and, lo! where comes D'Andelot, who was dubbed by the hand of the great Francis himself on his first field of battle, to buckle on the sword."
Certainly it could scarcely be by hands more distinguished that the ceremonies of knighthood were performed, and I might well go back to my quarters with a heart rejoicing in having taken a step far higher than any I had previously reached in the career which I had chosen for myself. Out of the small stock that remained to me, I gave a hundred crowns among the men as a largesse on my knighthood, and then immediately sought the room in the farmhouse where Louise had remained in conversation with good old La Tour and Dame Marguelette. Their rejoicing for her arrival had by this time poured itself forth, and they now all gathered round me with the strange mixture of feelings which I knew existed in their bosoms, causing an odd confusion of manner, which can only be understood when we recollect that those who now surrounded me remembered me chiefly as a boy--even as a child, whom they had been accustomed to direct, exhort, and to control, and that now the very same people found that child commanding, providing for, and protecting them with a tone of independence and authority, and proofs of power and right strangely opposed to all their former ideas.
The old pastor, though he certainly did not look upon me still as a boy, could scarcely understand how the men that he saw around me came to pay such instant deference to my orders; how one waited for my casque, another took off my cuirass, another came to me for one direction, and another on something else; and Dame Marguelette, for her part, would, I believe, willingly have patted my head when the helmet was taken off, and she saw again the brown curls that she used to twine round her fingers in my infancy. Louise alone seemed fully to look upon me as a man and a commander; but we must remember that on my arm had she leaned from her own childhood; that I had not only been her companion, but her counsellor and her protector; and that, side by side with my greater strength and powers, she had grown up like a violet under some taller shrub, shaded but sheltered.
I found good old La Tour thoughtful, very thoughtful; and at the meal which ensued, I remarked that he frequently laid down his knife and spoon, and fell into a deep revery. Louise, on the contrary, was bright and happy, full of joy and satisfaction at being once more amid those whom she loved best; and though, ever since the preceding night, a slight shade of timidity--timidity shall I call it? no, it was not timidity, nor exactly tenderness perhaps, but a depth, a profundity, a feelingness of tone--mingled with all she said to me. Though the colour in her cheek became somewhat brighter, and her eye acquired a calm intensity of look when she spoke to me long upon any interesting subject, yet it was evident that the change in her feelings towards me was, if I may use the term, less complete, even though greater, than with the two others; she beheld me with sensations which were only the expansion of what had gone before; they saw me under a point of view altogether altered; I saw the change in her, perhaps, in one little trait more than in anything else.
With natural, vanity I happened, during the meal, to mention that the Prince de Condé--at that time the great hero of the Protestant party--had just conferred upon me the order of knighthood with his own hand. Louise started up with her eyes and her cheeks all glowing, and with a look of joy and delight that can never pass from my mind. The tears of deep satisfaction were almost overflowing her eyes, and the words of congratulation were almost overpowering to her; but she sat down again immediately, and only held out her hand to me. The time had been when she would have cast her arms around my neck, and kissed me while she wished me joy.
After supper I went round the quarters which had been assigned to me, and concluded all my arrangements; and Louise, fatigued as she had been during the preceding night and day, retired to rest soon after my return. Dame Marguelette, and one of the maids who had been with her, slept in the same chamber, and retired at the same time; and good old La Tour and I were left alone. I was certainly altogether unprepared for the conversation that was to ensue.
"Henry," he said, as soon as we were quite alone and the door shut, "Henry, I am anxious for you and for Louise, most anxious for Louise." And, as he spoke, there was a sad and foreboding look about his eyes which showed that the anxiety that he spoke of was deeper than the lips.
"Indeed!" I replied, with a thousand vague and unreal fears excited in a moment: "and what makes you so anxious, my dear friend? Why are you troubled, La Tour? I have seen, indeed, that it was so all supper-time, though I knew not why."