"You know best," he whispered back, and the words would have given La Mothe food for thought had he heard them. "As you say, it will be safer to have him before our eyes than behind our backs. We may be quite sure that Hugues will watch him. Yes, I agree: at least he is prettier to look at than that beast of a Villon."
From her side, where she held it pressed, her left hand slipped down across the Dauphin's shoulder until it too drew him towards her, but when she raised her head the lines were smoothed from the forehead, and if the grey eyes were still watchful, they watched through a smile.
"Monseigneur permits it," she said. "Monseigneur, I have the honour to present to you Monsieur Stephen La Mothe."
"Monsieur La Mothe of where?" asked the boy gravely.
"Of Landless, in the Duchy of Lackeverything," replied La Mothe, bowing with an equal gravity, and at the adroit parrying of a difficult question the smile crept down from Ursula de Vesc's eyes until it loosened the hard lines of the mouth, and bent them to that Cupid's bow La Mothe so much desired to see. "I have many fellow-subjects, Monseigneur."
"Another name for that duchy is Amboise," said Charles, "and so, monsieur, it is my wish that you make the castle your home for as long as it pleases you."
He spoke with such a settled seriousness that it was difficult to be sure whether he understood the jest and played up to it in that spirit of make-believe which had drawn down the King's anger or answered out of a dull uncomprehension. Nor did La Mothe care which it was. His heart leaped within him at the double promise opened up of fulfilling the King's mission at his ease and watching the unbending of the curved bow, but he answered with an equal gravity.
"Then Landless is not Houseless, Monseigneur, and to devotion gratitude is added."
"Discretion and good appetite give a man a longer life than either," said Villon.
"But remember," and Commines spoke to La Mothe for the first time, "the
King has first claim upon both."