Sitting alone one evening by the open window of my room, I noticed, approaching the house, a handsomely-dressed gallant, holding in his hand a naked sword on which were some fresh blood-stains. He, glanced up at me, smiling, and I, recognising Raoul, ran hastily to meet him.
"Why, it is as dangerous to visit you as a deposed favourite!" he cried merrily.
"You come in such gorgeous plumage. Many a man in the Rue des Catonnes would cheerfully risk his life for the value of your gold braid. But," glancing at the blood on his sword, "you have discovered that!"
"Yes, there is a poor wretch farther down nursing his arm and grumbling frightfully at his own clumsiness; but I threw him a pistole or two to buy some ointment. So you have not followed the Cardinal?"
"No! I am waiting here till his return," and we went upstairs together, Raoul laughing heartily at what he called my impudence.
He did not refer to our last meeting at the Palais Royal, but chatted gaily about his sudden visit to Havre, though, of course, without revealing to me the secrets of his party.
"Well," I remarked presently, "now that the wretched squabble is over, what have you gained by it?"
"Over?" he cried in astonishment; "come to the Pont Neuf and see for yourself what is going on. The cards have been shuffled again, and we are playing the game with different partners. Condé has gone too far, and Dame Anne will have none of him. He claims every office in the State for his friends, and three-fourths of the country for himself. Unless he is put down, as Mazarin says, there will be nothing left but to carry him to Rheims."
"Then you have broken with the prince?"
"Our party holds the scales at present; neither side can do anything without us."