“Does it not occur to you, monsieur, that perhaps too much importance may have been attached to the word of this child—this Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye?”
“Does it occur to you that such has been the case, that she has overstated it?” counter-questioned Monsieur de Garnache.
“No, no. I do not say that. But—but—would it not be better—more—ah—satisfactory to all concerned, if you yourself were to go to Condillac, and deliver your message in person, demanding mademoiselle?”
The man from Paris looked at him a moment, then stood up suddenly, and shifted the carriages of his sword back to their normal position. His brows came together in a frown, from which the Seneschal argued that his suggestion was not well received.
“Monsieur,” said the Parisian very coldly, like a man who contains a rising anger, “let me tell you that this is the first time in my life that I have been concerned in anything that had to do with women and I am close upon forty years of age. The task, I can assure you, was little to my taste. I embarked upon it because, being a soldier and having received my orders, I was in the unfortunate position of being unable to help myself. But I intend, monsieur, to adhere rigidly to the letter of these commands. Already I have endured more than enough in the interests of this damsel. I have ridden from Paris, and that means close upon a week in the saddle—no little thing to a man who has acquired certain habits of life and developed a taste for certain minor comforts which he is very reluctant to forgo. I have fed and slept at inns, living on the worst of fares and sleeping on the hardest, and hardly the cleanest, of beds. Ventregris! Figure to yourself that last night we lay at Luzan, in the only inn the place contained—a hovel, Monsieur le Seneschal, a hovel in which I would not kennel a dog I loved.”
His face flushed, and his voice rose as he dwelt upon the things he had undergone.
“My servant and I slept in a dormitory’—a thousand devils! monsieur, in a dormitory! Do you realize it? We had for company a drunken vintner, a pedlar, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, and two peasant women; and they sent us to bed without candles, for modesty’s sake. I ask you to conceive my feelings in such a case as that. I could tell you more; but that as a sample of what I have undergone could scarcely be surpassed.”
“Truly-truly outrageous,” sympathized the Seneschal; yet he grinned.
“I ask you—have I not suffered inconvenience enough already in the service of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye that you can blame me if I refuse to go a single step further than my orders bid me?”
The Seneschal stared at him now in increasing dismay. Had his own interests been less at issue he could have indulged his mirth at the other’s fiery indignation at the inconveniences he recited. As it was, he had nothing to say; no thought or feeling other than what concerned finding a way of escape from the net that seemed to be closing in about him—how to seem to serve the Queen without turning against the Dowager of Condillac; how to seem to serve the Dowager without opposing the wishes of the Queen.