"It was not for the Dauphin's sake you risked your life this afternoon."
"That is quite true. It was for Mademoiselle de Vesc, and it may be risked again."
"Stephen, what do you mean?" But La Mothe, striding ahead as if impatient to face the issue and have done with uncertainties, returned no answer. There could be no answer until he saw how events fell out.
The Hercules chamber was named after the tapestry which hid the dull grey plaster of its walls. From the one door—and that there should be but one was unusual in an age when to provide for the strategy of retreat was common prudence—where the infant Hero strangled with chubby hands the twin serpents sent for his destruction, the story of his labours told itself with all the direct simplicity of medieval art.
No chronology was followed, the embroiderer having chosen her scenes at pleasure or as the exigencies of space demanded. Here, Samson-like, he tore the Numean lion jaw from jaw, his knee sunk in the shaggy chest, his shoulders ripped to the bone as the hooked claws gripped the muscles, his mighty torso a dripping crimson in the scheme of colour. There he cleansed the Augean stable in a faithfulness of detail more admirable in its approach to nature than its appeal to the sensibilities, the artist having left nothing to the imagination; beyond was the more human note, and Omphale bound him to her by a single thread stronger than all the chains ever riveted in Vulcan's forge. Next, with perhaps a significance of symbolism, the shirt of Nessus tortured him to madness with its scorching fires till the huge limbs writhed and the broad, kindly face was all a-sweat with agony, but—and now it was the door again—the benediction of peace crowned the end. The labours, the sorrows, the fiery trials were behind the back for ever, the faults and failures were forgiven or atoned for; after the stress of toil, the weariness of struggle, came the blessedness of rest; after humanity, divinity and the imperishable glory of high Olympus. Crude in its art, angular in its execution, there still was something of the soul of the worker stitched with the canvas. To Stephen La Mothe, touched at times by a poet's comprehension, it seemed not altogether a myth,—a type, perhaps; only, being very human, he hungered with a bitter hunger for the crowning of the peace and the divinity of love while life was life. It requires a robust faith to believe that Olympus can bring anything better than the best of earth.
A carved oak bench, black with age, stood beneath the centre of the three narrow windows piercing the outer wall; a four-branched copper lamp gave light from the polished table in the middle of the room; here and there, flanking the oaken bench, at the ends of the room, and at either side of the wide fireplace, were chairs and stools. A few wolfskin rugs dotted the floor. Villon and Saxe had not yet arrived.
"Mademoiselle begs that she may be excused to-night; she is very tired."
"But she cannot be excused," began Commines, when La Mothe intervened.
"Say that Monsieur La Mothe very greatly regrets she should be disturbed when so weary, but as it is of importance to Monseigneur he trusts she will excuse Monsieur d'Argenton's importunity."
"I told you how it would be," said Commines as the servant left the room, "you might as well have given your name first as last."