"Do you reckon temperance and chastity among your Christian virtues?"
"Why not, I pray you?"
"Because that housekeeper with the glowing mane, whom we saw at the gate of his domain, seemed to me something lusty for so demure a man."
"Evil to him who evil thinks!" rejoined Guillaume, with a smile. "I would not take my oath that our marquis was altogether insensible to the cajoleries of Queen Catherine's maids of honor; but that was a long while ago! I am strongly of the opinion that you could tell Bellinde about it without offending her or causing her pain. But here we are. I need not tell you that such subjects are not in season here. Our fair widow, Madame de Beuvre, is no prude, but at her age and in her position——"
Our friends rode over the drawbridge, which, in view of the tranquil state of the province, was lowered all day; the portcullis was closed.
Thus they rode, without hindrance or ceremony, into the courtyard of the manor, where they dismounted.
"One moment!" said Sciarra d'Alvimar to Guillaume, as they were about to enter the house; "do not, I beg you, mention my name here, on account of the servants."
"Neither here nor elsewhere," Monsieur d'Ars replied. "You have almost no foreign accent; so there is no need to say that you are Spanish. For which of my friends in Paris do you wish me to pass you off?"
"I should be sadly embarrassed to play a rôle other than my own. I prefer to remain almost myself, and simply to assume one of my family names. I will be a Villareal, if you choose, and as an explanation of my flight from Paris——"
"You can talk confidentially with the marquis, and arrange matters as you choose. There is nothing for me to do but to tell him how dear a friend of mine you are; that you are running away from some persecution or other; and that I beg him to take as good care of you as he would of myself."