"You ask that of a poet? As well ask it of a courtier—or a king's minister," he added, and turned to La Mothe. "Were I you I would set them face to face this very night."
"But she has already denied it."
"All the more reason. A truth will wait till morning, but a lie should be killed overnight. Lies breed fast and die hard."
"But she may refuse."
"If I know women," said Villon, "Mademoiselle de Vesc will refuse you nothing."
CHAPTER XXII
"WE MUST SAVE HER TOGETHER"
But while Stephen La Mothe still hesitated Commines took action. He recognized that sooner or later there must be a confronting. Ursula de Vesc, however deeply implicated, was no patient Griselda to accept judgment without a protest. Tacit admission would condemn the Dauphin equally with herself, and she might be trusted to fight for the Dauphin with every wile and subterfuge open to a desperate woman. In her natural attitude of indignation she would certainly force a crisis. The sooner the crisis came the better, and amongst those for whom that was better Philip de Commines was not the least. With all his heart he loathed the part he was compelled to play, even while determined to play it to its ghastly end. But to some men, Commines amongst them, the irrevocable brings a drugging of the sensibilities. When that which must be done could not be undone he would be at peace.
The sooner the crisis came the better, too, for Stephen La Mothe, and Commines' sympathies went out to him with an unwonted tenderness. The lad's nerves were flayed raw, and for him also there could be no peace until the inevitable end had come. But just what that end would be, and how it was to be reached, Commines feared to discuss even with himself.
But the first necessity was that Ursula de Vesc's complicity should be brought home to her. Let that be done, and La Mothe's despair might clear aside all difficulties, though, without doubt, the poor boy would suffer. There is no such pain as when love dies in the full glory of its strength. But then would come the ministrations of Time, the healer. Mother Nature of the rough hand and tender heart would scar the hurt, and little by little its agony would numb into a passive submission.