“Garnache?” the Parisian heard her say, and he saw Fortunio jerk his thumb in the direction of the barricade.
She appeared to forget her son; she stepped suddenly from his side, and peered through the doorway at the stalwart figure of Garnache, dimly to be seen through the pile of furniture that protected him to the height of his breast. No word said she to the Parisian. She stood regarding him a moment with lips compressed and a white, startled, angry face. Then:
“It was by Marius’s contrivance that he was placed sentry over the girl,” he heard her tell Fortunio, and he thought she sneered.
She looked at the two bodies on the floor, one almost at her feet, the other just inside the doorway, now almost hidden in the shadows of the table. Then she issued her commands to the men, and fiercely she bade them pull down that barricade and take the dog alive.
But before they could move to do her bidding, Garnache’s voice rang imperatively through the chamber.
“A word with you ere they begin, Monsieur de Tressan,” he shouted, and such was the note of command he assumed that the men stood arrested, looking to the Dowager for fresh orders. Tressan changed colour, for all that there was surely naught to fear, and he fingered his beard perplexedly, looking to the Marquise for direction. She flashed him a glance, lifted one shoulder disdainfully, and to the men:
“Fetch him out,” said she, and she pointed to Garnache. But again Garnache stayed them.
“Monsieur de Tressan,” he called impressively, “to your dying day—and that will be none so distant—shall you regret it if you do not hear me.”
The Seneschal was stirred by those words and the half-threat, half-warning; they seemed to cover. He paused a moment, and this time his eyes avoided the Marquise’s. At last, taking a step forward,
“Knave,” said he, “I do not know you.”