"Thank you for nothing," said La Mothe drily, but unoffended. In these ten days he had learned which of Villon's jests were innocent of intention to hurt, and which carried a poisoned barb. "Love may be bought in Paris, but not in Amboise."
"But it costs more," retorted Villon. "In Amboise it costs a man's whole life, whereas in Paris," he paused, shrugged his shoulders, turned the drinking mug upside down and shook it whimsically, "emptiness ended all: emptiness of pocket, emptiness of—but there are seven separate emptinesses and any one was enough. Now listen and do not interrupt again. There be many ways of gathering peaches, but your way of kneeling at the foot of the tree with your hands folded like a saint in stained glass is the worst of all. It is only in theory that women, even lily Madonnas, love men to be saints; when it comes to practice——"
He broke off, chuckling the soft complacent chuckle La Mothe so greatly disliked, and putting the empty mug to his nose drew in the perfume of the wine with a deep breath. The lids drooped slowly over his shining eyes, and in the backward groping along the crooked byways which had led from Paris pavements to the mercy of Louis by way of an escaped gallows he forgot both La Mothe and Amboise. The voice of Paris the beloved, Paris the ever mourned for, was in his ears; the jargon of the Rue Maubert, the tinkle of the glasses through the doubtful but merry songs of the Pet du Deable, whispers of gay voices which had long passed beyond these voices, and the leering face, part satyr and part poet, grew wholly poet in its remembrance. It is the blessing of nature, and one of its most divine gifts, that memory brings back the best from the past and leaves the worst covered. Even our snows of yester year are roseate with the glow of imagination.
"The Madonna lily! Blessed is the man who gathers one and finds warm blood in its pure veins. The gift of a good woman who loves and is loved. Aye, aye, God send us all heaven while we're young. The Madonna lily! Once there was such a one in the garden of life, pure, sweet, and beloved. But the perfume was not for Francois Villon, and the swine in him turned to the husks of the trough. Catherine de Vaucelles; Catherine, dead these many years, dead but never forgotten, a saint with the saints of God, and the rest—damned." He spoke to himself rather than to La Mothe, but after a little spell of silence he looked up, gravely in earnest. "You go too slowly. Any day the King may crook his finger. What if he calls you to Valmy, then sends you God knows where, God knows for how long, and you return to Amboise to find some one else has gathered your lily while you lagged? That would be a chilly winter in the garden of life where you left young spring."
La Mothe sat silent. What reply was possible? That the advice was well meant he knew, but he had never before realized that a peremptory recall might come any moment from Valmy. And it was not impossible. Louis, aged and ailing, spurred, too, by the desire for the comfort of his son's love while life was still good to the taste, would be impatient of delay. These ten days which had passed with the swiftness of a summer's morning would be long as a wintry month to the lonely father. But to the devout lover, in him haste savoured of presumption. Ursula de Vesc was his good friend and comrade; could he hope for more than that in so short a time? In making haste might he not lose all he had gained? Besides, in the service and worship of the one dear woman in the world, a man is his own High Priest, and none save himself may enter into the Holy of Holies. And what could this peach-picker of Paris pavements know of such a Holy of Holies? Nothing, absolutely nothing. So he sat silent, doubly tongue-tied by doubt and reverence.
But for these, Villon, who read his face with disconcerting ease, had no great respect.
"Eh!" he said briskly, "is the advice good?"
"Is good advice easy to follow?"
"Yes, when it is palatable, which is not often: commonly it has a bitter taste in the swallowing. Or do you think it will be all the same fifty years hence? By all the Muses, there's an idea! I must write the 'Ballad of Fifty Years to Come.' Let me see—let me see—'m yes, the first verse might run like this:
"Where is La Mothe, that lover gay,
Or Francois Villon, poet splendid!
Madonna of the eyes of grey,
Or Charles whom Bertrand nearly ended?
D'Argenton, are his manners mended?
Or wisest Louis, swift to pardon
Though so grievously offended?
Ask of the Scents of Amboise garden!