Jacques looked rather sheepish.
‘I am not of the stuff that can withstand so tempting a diversion—why, ’twill be a jest to posterity! His eager, foolish, obsequious face; and his tire! I’faith, I would not have missed it for a kingdom!’ and he tossed back his head and laughed delightedly.
Hylas, hélas!... Jacques was limping ... Vulcan was lame, wasn’t he? ‘In the smithy of Vulcan weapons are being forged that will smash up your world of galanterie and galamatias into a thousand fragments!’
‘Why, Chop, you look sadly!’ he cried, with sudden contrition. ‘’Tis finished and done with, and these coxcombs’ impudence bred them, I can vouch for it, a score of bruises apiece! Chop, come here! Why, the most modish and galant folk have oftentimes had the strangest visionnaires for fathers. There is Madame de Chevreuse—who has not heard of the naïvetés and visions of her father? And ’twas a strange madman that begot the King himself!’ he said, thinking to have found where the shoe pinched. But Madeleine remained silent and unresponsive, and he left her.
Yes, why had she been so pursued these last few days by her father’s amours? It was strange that love should have brought him too from Lyons! And he too had set his faith on the magical properties of bravery! What if.... Then there swept over her the memory of the Grecian Sappho, driving a host of nameless fears back into the crannies of her mind. Besides—to-morrow began the new era!
She smiled ecstatically, and, tired though she was, broke into a triumphant dance.
CHAPTER IX
AT THE HÔTEL DE RAMBOUILLET
When Madeleine awoke next morning, the feeling she had had over night of being in a dream had by no means left her.
From the street rose the cries of the hawkers:—