"Charles the Rash found it no toy in the hands of the Swiss at Morat," replied Commines. "But toy or no toy, put it aside while I talk to you. Stephen, my son, I fear I have done you an ill turn to-day."
"Then it is the first of your life," answered La Mothe cheerily, as he stood the weapon upright in the angle of the wall. "It would need a good many ill turns to set the balance even between us, Uncle Philip."
"No. One thoughtless act which cannot be recalled or undone may outweigh a life. And so with this. Stephen, I have commended you to the King for service."
La Mothe leaped to his feet, laying his hands on Commines' shoulders impulsively, one upon each. And if proof were needed of the relations between these two, it would be found in the spontaneous frankness of the gesture: Philip de Commines was not a man with whom to take liberties, but there stood La Mothe almost rocking the elder man in the fullness of his satisfaction.
"At last," he cried. "I have been eating my heart out for this for a week past! And you call that an ill turn?"
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" and Commines, smiling through his gravity, followed the other's gesture so that the two stood face to face, locked the one to the other at arm's length.
How like the lad was to Suzanne: a man's strong likeness of a woman's sweet face. There were the same clear expressive eyes, ready to light with laughter or darken with sympathy; the same sensitive firm mouth and squared chin, fuller and stronger as became a man and yet Suzanne's in steadfastness to the life; the same broad forehead and arched brows; the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement. Even the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint running through the brown in certain lights.
Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never loved Hélène de Chambes, his wife these nine years past! Suzanne whom he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had hardened upon him since Suzanne died. So for Suzanne's sake he called Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any drop of blood relationship.
"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"
"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"