Æsop continued: "Here. I found her in Madrid, the dancing-girl of a band of gypsies. She is the right age. The girl is clever, she is comely, her hair is of the Nevers shade, her color of the Nevers tint. She is, by good-fortune, still chaste, for when I first began to think of this scheme the minx was little more than a child, and the gypsies, who were willing to do my bidding, kept her clean for my need. Oh, she has been well prepared, I promise you! She has been taught to believe that she was stolen from her parents in her babyhood, and will meet any fable half-way. She will make a most presentable heiress to the gentleman we killed at Caylus—"
Peyrolles agitated his yellow hands deprecatingly. He did not like the revival of unpleasant memories. "My good friend!" he protested.
Æsop eyed him with disdain. "Well, we did kill him, didn’t we? You don’t want to pretend that he’s alive now, after that jab in the back your master gave him fifteen years ago?"
Peyrolles wriggled on his chair in an agony of discomfort. "Hush, for Heaven’s sake! Don’t talk like that!"
Æsop slapped the table till the glasses rang. "I’ll talk as I please."
Peyrolles saw it was useless to argue with the hunchback, and submitted. "Yes, yes; but let bygones be bygones. About this girl?"
Æsop resumed his narrative. "I sent her and her tribe Franceward from Madrid. I didn’t accompany them, for I’m not fond of companionship; but I told them to wait me here, and here they are. What place could be more excellent? All sorts of vagabonds come hither from all parts of the world at fair-time. How natural that your admirable master should amuse his leisure by visiting the fair, and in so diverting himself be struck by a beautiful gypsy girl’s resemblance to the features of his dear dead friend! It is all a romance, friend Peyrolles, and a very good romance. And I, Æsop, made it."
The hunchback struck an attitude as he spoke, and strove to twist his evil countenance into a look of inspiration.
Peyrolles was all eagerness now. "Let me see the girl," he pleaded.
Æsop shook his head. "By-and-by. It is understood that if Gonzague accepts the girl as Nevers’s child he takes me into his service in Paris. Eh?"