I bowed, and with another of her swift glances she asked:
"And you are to be trusted?"
"Your Majesty," I said, "I have but my word to offer for this—I have none who will add his pledge to mine."
"No one? Are you sure?"
"Your Majesty, it is as I have said."
A faint smile parted her lips, and she looked up at me suddenly and quickly, her eyes as alive with intelligence as they had appeared dull and lifeless before.
"Well, monsieur, before I trust you," and she struck the glove she held in her hand on the table, "it is necessary for me to tell you something. Listen. Many years ago—I was new to France then—a young gentleman of the best blood of Burgundy came to Paris, and entered at the College of Cambrai. Well, he did what none other of his time did, nor has any of his order done the like since. He took the three courses—took them brilliantly. You follow me?"
"I am all attention, madame." My voice was as cold and measured as hers, but in my heart I began to wonder if I would leave the room for a journey to Montfauçon, with a halt by the way at the Châtelet.
"But," she continued, "this man was not a mere bookworm nor a pedant, though Le Brun, whose voice was the voice of the Sorbonne then, prophesied a red hat for him. The red hat never came, nor did a marshal's baton, though Bevilacqua himself foretold the latter one day, as he brushed away a chalk mark just over the heart, where this young man's foil had touched him. Bevilacqua, mind you—the best sword in Europe!"
I made as if about to speak. I was about to ask her bluntly what was to be the end of this, but with a wave of her hand she stayed me.