"You see how we stand, always on the brink of the grave. Some day, to-morrow, next month, next year, the grave-edge will crumble under our feet and yet we dare not say, Sire! take care! All we can do is to hold him back at all costs and in spite of himself. For when that grave shuts——"
Though my knowledge of Plessis could be measured by days, my ears had been open as well as my eyes, and so the snap of the fingers that rounded off the sentence was more informatory than words. It meant, as far as Monseigneur was concerned, a friend's deep sorrow, a crown minister's despair, a courtier's ruin; bereavement instant and irremediable to heart, brain, and ambition; it meant that the present fortunes and future prospects of the living Commines would certainly be buried with the dead King, and perhaps also the glory and greatness of France. Nor do I think the certainty of the one fretted him as sorely as the perhaps of the others. For eleven years Philip de Commines had been the greatest man in the kingdom, serving Louis, France, and himself, and loving all three. Let the grave close over his master, and at the groan of the sepulchral stone rasping to its socket Love and Service perished. But I think that with him, as with every truly great man, his life's work was dearer than himself, and his heart, as he leaned against the little diamond window panes looking out into the narrow court, was bitter for the loss to France rather than at the crumbling of his own fortunes.
"At any cost," he said, repeating the words over and over, "at any cost, at any—any cost."
"Even of a child's murder?"
"What?" he answered looking back across his shoulder, "are you still harping on that blunder? Oh! you Flemish calves! with but one idea in your head!"
"And is Commines not also in Flanders?"
He laughed, and quitting the window came towards me.
"True, friend Gaspard, and a fair hit; but there are great ideas as well as small ones, and it would be a mercy if you and that Martin of yours could think of more than one thing at a time."
"Martin?" said I, in despair at this fresh blow. "My own folly you have made clear, but what has Martin done?"
Monsieur de Commines shook his head gravely, but it was a relief to see a twinkle of humour shining through the gravity in his eyes.