She knit her fingers and looked at him defiantly—perhaps, if the truth must be told, more in anger than in sorrow.
The voice of the Professor of Eloquence broke in upon them.
"Young man," he said, "you have surprised a secret which is not mine—much less yours. Be off at once to your uncle, the Cardinal d'Albret, and to your friend's father Launay, the ex-provost of the merchants. Get three passports—for me, for my daughter Claire, and—for my nephew——"
"What nephew?" said the youth, rubbing the ear which the Professor had pulled.
"One I have adopted recently!" said the Professor gravely, "a certain worthless loon, who came up hither seeking what was not his—a sword-cane and a pistol, and who found that which, God knows, belongs to neither of us—an uncomfortable possession in these days, a Huguenot maiden with eyes like a flame of fire!"
"They are more like pansies!" said the young man doggedly.
"How do you know? How dare you? Is she not my daughter?"
"Aye, master, she is, of course, your daughter if you say so"—the voice of the Abbé John was uncertain. He did not like the Professor claiming so much—and he beginning to be bald too. What have bald pates to do with pretty young girls? Even thus he growled low to himself.
"Eh, what's that?" the Professor caught him up. "Be off—it is to save her life, and you are a young blade who should never refuse an adventure, specially when at last it gives you a chance to be taken for the relative of a respectable man——"
"And the cousin of this fair maid, your—daughter?"