"That is perhaps true," she said at last; "Guise is vain, and venturesome because he is vain. He cannot do without shouting crowds, and hands held out to him by every scavenger and pewterer's apprentice—'Guise—the good Guise!' Pah! The man is no better than a posturer before a booth at a fair!"
"I have heard almost as much from my father," Claire answered; "he used to say that Mayenne led the armies, the priests collected the pennies, and as for Guise, he was only the big man who beat the Leaguers' drum!"
"Your father is dead, they say," murmured the Princess softly; "but in his time he must have been a man of wit."
"He taught me all I know," Claire assented, "and he died in the service of the Faith and of the King of Navarre."
"It is strange that I should never have met him," said Catherine. "I have heard say he was on mission to my brother."
"On secret mission," said Claire; "we came often to the camp by night, and were gone in the morning."
The Princess looked at her junior in great astonishment.
"Then you have seen camps, and men, and cities?" she asked eagerly.
"And you, courts!" answered Claire, on her part not a little wistfully.
A shudder traversed the slender body of the Princess. Her lip curled with disgust.