"Not gaping, no! But is a man to close his eyes when heaven opens? I beg you to believe," he went on with great dignity, "that just so soon as I made certain you had nothing to learn from me I left you to your rose-gathering. Observe I have not said one word about the thorns. That is the stale gibe of the cynic whose heart of youth has dried before its time. And what if there are thorns? A single rose with the dew of love upon it is worth more than a pair of scratched hands. Gape? Could you believe it of me—of me, Francois Villon? No, son of my teaching, I doffed my hat and went on tiptoe to see Saxe."
"Saxe!" cried La Mothe. "Never once have I thought of Saxe, never once all day, and now it is almost night."
"Don't distress yourself on that account. Saxe has wanted for nothing, thanks to his two best friends. That reminds me." Pausing, Villon rapped loudly on the table with his clenched knuckles, rapped until a servant familiar with his ways answered the summons. "My friend, fetch me a bottle of wine, one single bottle from the furthest-in bin on the right-hand side of the cellar. It is the '63 vintage," he explained to La Mothe, "and I have the best of reasons for knowing Saxe will not object."
"But why one bottle only?"
"I have been invited to a certain presentation," he answered, the crow's feet round his twinkling eyes deepening as he laughed. "Thanks, my friend," he went on as the drawer returned with the wine; "place it on the table and retire to your kitchen to meditate on the mutability of human fortune in the person of the greatest poet of his age, from the Guest of the Three-legged Maid of Montfaucon to 'Francois Villon, my friend' of the Dauphin of France! At last they are beginning to appreciate me at the Château."
"But what of Saxe?"
"Ah, Saxe?" Filling his horn mug he emptied it with such slow satisfaction that the flavour of no single drop of the wine missed his palate. "Saxe's best friend had been before me this morning."
"But Monsieur de Commines' orders were strict, only you and I were to see him."
"Not even your Monsieur de Commines can shut out a man from himself, and who is a better friend or a worse enemy? Saxe, the wise man, has hanged himself."
"Hanged himself? Saxe?"