Gonzague stared for a while at the hunchback in silence. "I believe the rogue is serious," he said, more as a reflection addressed to himself than as a remark addressed to the hunchback.
But the hunchback answered it: "Yes, for I love her. Give her to me, and I will take her far away from Paris, and you shall never hear of her again. She will no longer be the daughter of Nevers; she will be the wife of Æsop the hunchback."
The proposition was not unpleasing to Louis of Gonzague. It certainly seemed to offer a way of getting rid of the girl without the necessity of killing her, and Gonzague was too fastidious to desire to commit murder where murder was wholly unnecessary, but the thing seemed impossible. "She would never consent," he protested.
The hunchback laughed softly, a low laugh of self-confidence. "Look at me, monseigneur," he said, "Æsop the hunchback, but do not laugh while you look and damn me for an impossible gallant. Crooked and withered as I am, I have power to make women love me. Let me try. If I fail to win the girl, do what you please with her, and I will ask no more."
Gonzague looked keenly at the bowed, supplicating figure. "Are you thinking of playing me false?" he murmured. "Do you dream of taking the girl to give her to her mother?"
The hunchback laughed—a dry, strident laugh. "Would Æsop be a welcome son-in-law to the Princess de Gonzague?"
Gonzague seemed to feel the force of the hunchback’s reasoning. To marry the girl to this malformed assassin was to destroy her more utterly, she still living, than to destroy her by taking her life. "Well," he said—"well, you shall try your luck. If she marries you, she is out of my way. If she refuses you, you shall be avenged for her disdain. We can always revert to my first intention."
A slight shudder seemed to pass over the distorted form of the hunchback, but he responded with familiar confidence: "She will not disdain me."
Gonzague laughed. "Confident wooer. When do you mean to woo?"
The hunchback came a little nearer to him and spoke, eagerly: "No time like the present, highness. I thought that on this night of triumph for you I could provide for you and your friends such an entertainment as no other man in all Paris could command. I have ventured to summon your notary. Let your supper be my wedding-feast, your guests my witnesses. Bring the girl and I will win her. I am sure of it—sure."