And yet, now that La Mothe had brought him face to face with the question, what had he discovered? Little or nothing. Using all the arts and artifices which ten years' service under such a master of subtle craftiness as the eleventh Louis had taught him, he had cajoled and bribed, probed and sifted, even covertly threatened at times. But all to no purpose. An indignant sarcasm from Ursula de Vesc, a politic—and wise—regret for the estrangement from La Follette, a petulant outburst from Charles, childish and pathetically cynical by turns, the vague whispers inseparable from such a household as was gathered together in Amboise were all his reward. But the King demanded proof; the King demanded articles of conviction which would, if necessary, satisfy an incredulous world that the terrible tragedy which followed proof was the justice of the highest law.
"Disaffection is everywhere," he said at last; "disloyalty which only lacks the spur of opportunity to drive desire into action. If these things are on the surface, worse lies hidden. You know the proverb of Smoke and Fire? I see the fire laid, I smell the smoke: it was for you to find the spark, you who have had a free hand in Amboise. But you play nonsense games with Charles, hanging upon the skirts of the unscrupulous woman who tutors him to revolt, or drink in taverns with a scurrilous thief turned spy to save his neck from a deserved hanging. Do you think you serve the King by philandering in a rose garden, or playing at French and English in the Burnt Mill? Francois Villon! Ursula de Vesc! Stephen, you make yourself too much one with them—an unhung footpad who prostitutes the powers of mind God gave him to the devil's use, and a woman——"
"Uncle, if even your father had spoken evil of Suzanne would you have listened to him?"
"Suzanne? What has Suzanne in common with Ursula de Vesc?"
"Only that I love her as you loved Suzanne," answered La Mothe.
"Ursula de Vesc? Stephen, at the least she is the King's enemy."
"Yes, he told me so himself."
"And at the worst——"
"There is no worst," said La Mothe doggedly. "There is no plot against the King, no plot at all."
"And your proof is that when a clever woman bade a boy control his tongue he obeyed her! Will that convince Louis? Would it convince yourself but for this calf-love of yours? Stephen, Stephen, you do not know the gulf on which you stand. What answer am I to return to the King?"