"Monsieur La Mothe! Oh, Monsieur La Mothe!"
To La Mothe the flushed face, the sparkling eyes, and, above all, the exclamation, were so pathetically eloquent of a stinted, starved, neglected childhood that a rush of passionate resentment swept across him in arraignment of the father who robbed his son of those common joys which are childhood's natural food and rightful heritage. To be a man in responsibilities, a man bearing the burden and sorrows of his years, without having first been a boy at heart is more than an irreparable loss, it is an irreparable wrong, a tragedy which has killed the purest sweetener of the sours of life. Rob the twig of its sunshine and you rob the tree of its strength. But even while the flame of his anger scorched him, he remembered from whose hand had come the gifts which brightened the boy's eyes, and was ashamed. Had he not said there was a wealth of unimagined love in the world?
"For me, Monsieur La Mothe?"
"If you will accept them."
"See, Ursula! See, Father John! Now I can really be a knight like
Roland, or fight as Joan of Arc fought. Oh, thank you, Monsieur La
Mothe, thank you. And what is this?"
"An embroidered mask for your plays, only none but you must wear it. See, this is the way it fastens behind, and this fringe hides the mouth."
"I don't think I like that so well. Yes, I do! For now I can be the man who attacked the Burnt Mill yesterday—he wore a mask, you remember. Poor Hugues! Oh, Ursula, I wish Hugues was here that I might show him my armour. But I will show it to Blaise instead. You know Blaise is to sleep at my door now? Come, Father John, while I show it to Blaise. I will put on the mask afterwards."
"And meanwhile, Monseigneur," said Villon, "I will try how it fits."
But La Mothe, remembering the King's instructions, intervened. "No, no, Villon, that is for the Dauphin alone—that and the coat-of-mail—no one else must use them."
For a moment it seemed as if Villon, vexed at what he took to be a rebuke for presumption, would have pushed aside La Mothe's protesting hand, but with a shrug of his shoulders he gave way.