“For M. de Rochefoucauld?”
Tignonville laughed. “No,” he said. “I am here to see him to his lodging, that is all. News, Captain? What made you think so?”
“That which you have in your hand,” Nançay answered, his fears relieved.
The young man blushed to the roots of his hair. “It is not for him,” he said.
“I can see that, Monsieur,” Nançay answered politely. “He has his successes, but all the billets-doux do not go one way.”
The young man laughed, a conscious, flattered laugh. He was handsome, with such a face as women love, but there was a lack of ease in the way he wore his Court suit. It was a trifle finer, too, than accorded with Huguenot taste; or it looked the finer for the way he wore it, even as Teligny’s and Foucauld’s velvet capes and stiff brocades lost their richness and became but the adjuncts, fitting and graceful, of the men. Odder still, as Tignonville laughed, half hiding and half revealing the dainty scented paper in his hand, his clothes seemed smarter and he more awkward than usual.
“It is from a lady,” he admitted. “But a bit of badinage, I assure you, nothing more!”
“Understood!” M. de Nançay murmured politely. “I congratulate you.”
“But—”
“I say I congratulate you!”