Monsieur de Créquy, his back to the light, stood in the embrasure of a window, deeply engaged in examining his features in a small hand-glass which he held daintily before him. The survey seemed to please monsieur, for he showed his teeth in a simper of satisfaction, and began to curl his black moustache between the forefinger and thumb of his disengaged hand. So engrossed was he that he never observed me coming up to him, and it was not until I was at his elbow that he suddenly realised my presence.
"Morbleu!" and he hastily slipped the glass in his pocket, "wherever did you spring from?"
"Not through the window, I assure you. I but came in the ordinary way. Madame, I suppose, is within?" And I pointed to a closed door in front of us.
Créquy nodded. "Yes; reposing after the fatigues of the day, and will have none but a Chevalier of the Order to guard the entrance to her bower. What a day it has been! I suppose you know it will be on Saturday?"
I could have struck the coxcomb; but held myself in, and asked to see La Valentinois, adding that my affair was of vital import. At this Créquy began to hum and haw, and I had to humour him, telling him that madame would give him but small thanks for denying me, as my business concerned what was to happen on Saturday.
"That is a different matter," he said. "I will see." And he tapped at the door. There was no answer; thereupon Créquy gently opened the door and stepped in. He came out again almost immediately.
"As I said, madame is reposing; but I have told the Syrian. Would you like to wait here?"
"Perhaps I had better get my business over as soon as possible, and save the Syrian the trouble of coming to the outer door," I said. At which Créquy shrugged his shoulders, and pointing to the door with a mock bow bade me enter.
I did as I was bidden, and found myself in a long and narrow room. The ceiling, painted to represent the sky lit up by the crescent moon, was supported by eight arabesque pillars, four on either hand. Around the bases of the pillars, and scattered here and there over the rich carpet, were seats made of huge soft cushions, covered with matchless embroidery. Near one of these luxurious seats was a low carved table upon which lay an open volume of Ronsard's poems, and close by it, thrown carelessly on the carpet, was a lute with a cluster of streaming ribbons, and a black and white satin sling attached to it. Behind this stood a carved ebony prie-dieu, and above the crucifix that surmounted it hung a shield surrounded by a wreath of flowers, and bearing upon it a tree springing out of a tomb, with the legend: "Left alone—I live in thee," upon a scroll beneath. This was the strange manner in which Diane de Poitiers kept the memory of her dead husband green—for she ever posed as the inconsolable widow, carrying her husband's soul about with her, packed in straw, like her Venetian crystal goblets and eastern pottery. In the centre of the room, upon a veined marble pedestal, stood, in strange incongruity, a replica of the great bronze of Goujou, that faced her chateau of Anet. In this Diane was represented nude, reclining upon a stag, a bow in her hand, and surrounded by dogs.
Owing to the heat of the day the windows were open; but the curtains of pale blue silk, with silver crescents gleaming on them, were drawn to keep out the afternoon glare; and the subdued, opal-tinted light fell softly on this bower of luxury, which was, however, likely to prove the den of a tigress to me.