"And yet," La Mothe laid his hand on the elder man's shoulder, letting it lie there in kindliness, "you who so gibe at your best self are the Francois Villon of the ballad to Mary the Mother. How is that?"
"Can I tell you?
'Je cognois tout fors que moy mesme.'
Man is Eden in little: there is the slime of the serpent under the tree of knowledge, but the Lord God walks through the garden in the cool of the day. What are we but contradictions, shadows of Montfaucon shot through by glories from Notre Dame. Perhaps some day a clearer knowledge than ours will straighten out the tangles," and with a laugh, which had little joyousness in it, Villon plunged afresh into memories which seemed to strike the whole gamut of a soul's experience from A to G.
La Mothe allowed him to run on without interruption. The alternations of mood, tender and callous by turns, but never remorseful, never regretful, except with the regrets for a lost delight, both amused and repelled him, but at last as Villon sat silent he turned to the window and flung open the wooden sun-blinds.
"At last they are awake in the Château," he said. "Horses? hawks? Are they going hunting, do you suppose?"
"Saxe will know. Hulloa! Saxe! Saxe! What is little Charles doing to-day?"
"I was coming for you both," answered Saxe from the open door. "They are riding to Château-Renaud, and your worships are so beloved by both the Dauphin and mademoiselle that you must needs go with them. Monsieur de Commines and Monsieur La Follette have gone hawking for the day."
"Do not go," said Villon. "They know you at Château-Renaud, and how could you explain if they recognized you?"
"But we may not go near the inn," answered La Mothe, to whom the ride meant neither more nor less than a morning with Ursula de Vesc, therefore a delight not to be denied. "But what of horses?"