He smiled radiantly.
“My hopes are all surpassed. It exceeds belief that so poor a thing as I should find favour in her eyes—what eyes, Gaston!” He broke off with a sigh of rapture.
“Peste, you have lost no time. And so, already you know that you find favour, eh! How know you that?”
“How? Need a man be told such things? There is an inexpressible—”
“My good Andrea, seek not to express it, therefore,” I interrupted hastily. “Let it suffice that the inexpressible exists, and makes you happy. His Eminence will doubtless share your joy! Have you written to him?”
The mirth faded from the lad's face at the words, as the blossom fades 'neath the blighting touch of frost. What he said was so undutiful from a nephew touching his uncle—particularly when that uncle is a prelate—that I refrain from penning it.
We were joined just then by the Chevalier, and together we strolled round to the rose-garden—now, alas! naught but black and naked bushes—and down to the edge of the Loire, yellow and swollen by the recent rains.
“How lovely must be this place in summer,” I mused, looking across the water towards Chambord. “And, Dame,” I cried, suddenly changing my meditations, “what an ideal fencing ground is this even turf!”
“The swordsman's instinct,” laughed Canaples.
And with that our talk shifted to swords, swordsmen, and sword-play, until I suggested to Andrea that he should resume his practice, whereupon the Chevalier offered to set a room at our disposal.