"You will come with me, Monsieur Hellewyl. Morlaix will see after—is it Martin you call him? Only, remember this, all three. You heard my farewell to Mademoiselle? Take it to yourselves, and forget the Star of Flanders. To-night I have been on the King's business, and Louis has but one cure for loose tongues. I ask no promises, your risk is my best assurance."
Some men would have said "your honour," but not Monsieur de Commines; he had lived long at courts and preferred to rest his claim on the surest foundation.
It was not until my wounds were dressed, and garments of I know not whose ownership provided in place of my mired rags, that Monsieur de Commines—we being in the privacy of his own suite of rooms—asked for my story. Nor did he interrupt me in its telling, but sat like a statue, his face turned up to the painted ceiling. The failure of our fortunes, the burning of Solignac, the murder of old Babette, moved him no more than if a stranger had bidden him good day. But as I ended he lowered his eyes, looking at me keenly but not unkindly.
"And why do you come to Paris?"
My answer was as curt as the question.
"To move Monsieur de Commines to move the King to give me justice on Jan Meert."
"I might as well hope to move the Louvre to carry you to Plessis les Tours—unless the King willed to be moved. And on Jan Meert!" a little grim smile dashed with a tolerant contempt, broke over his lips; "a Hollander, eh?"
"You know him, Monseigneur, you know him!" I cried impetuously, moved less by the words than by the look on his face, "Oh, then, it will be easy."
"I know many things," he answered, the smile deepening. "I know this, my friend; you are very innocent. Did it never strike you that the King of France has many agents—no, agents is too strong a word, it implies a kind of intimacy, a private confidence,—call them tools?"
"Agents? Tools? Monseigneur, Monseigneur, what commerce can a King of France have with a Jan Meert?"