"I wish to see that trick with the red ball," said De Marcieu quietly, taking no notice whatever of her emphasis on the word "you." "Show it to me."
For answer, however, she dropped the balls into the bag, and, drawing up a vacant chair which stood against our table—she was a free and easy young woman, this!—said she was tired, and should do no more tricks that night. Also, she asked for some of our Roussillon as a payment for what she had done. Whereupon Camier poured her out a gobletful and passed it over to her, which, with a pretty little bow and grimace, she took, drinking our healths saucily a moment later.
Meanwhile I was eyeing this stroller and thinking that she was a vastly well-favoured one in spite of her brown skin, which, both on face and hands, was a strange colour, it not being altogether that wholesome, healthy brown which the winds and sun bring to those who are always in the open, but, instead, a sort of muddy colour, so that I thought, perhaps, she did not use to wash overmuch—which, maybe, was like enough. Also, I wondered at[!-- [Pg 249] --] the shapeliness of her fingers and hands, the former being delicate and tapering, and the nails particularly well kept. Likewise, I observed something else that I thought strange. Her robe—for such it was—consisted of a coarse, russet-coloured Nîmes serge, such as the poor ever wear in France, having in it several tears and jags that had been mended roughly, yet, all the same, it looked new and fresh—too new, indeed, to have been thus torn and frayed. Then, also, I noticed that at her neck, just above the collar of her dress, there peeped out a piece of lace of the finest quality, lace as good as that of my steinkirk or the ruffles of a dandy's frills. And all this set me a-musing, I know not why.
Meanwhile Marcieu was persistent about that red ball, asking her again and again to try the trick on him, and protesting in a kind of rude good-humour that she did not dare to let him inspect the ball, since she feared he would discover some cunning artifice in it which would show how she made it change from red to gilt.
"Bah!" she replied, "I can do it with anything else. Here, I will show you the trick with other balls." Whereon, as she spoke, she drew out two of the gilt ones and said, "Now, hold out your hands and observe. See, this one has a scratch on it; that one has none. Put the second in your hand and I will transfer the other in its place."
"Nay," said the chevalier; "you shall do it with the red or not at all."
"I will conjure no more," she said pettishly. Then she snatched up the goblet of wine, drank it down at a gulp, and went off out of the room, saying—
"Good-night, mousquetaires. Good-night, Blue Eyes," and, I protest, blew me a kiss with the tips of her fingers. The sauciness of these mountebanks is often beyond belief.
The chevalier took the vacant chair she had quitted,[!-- [Pg 250] --] though no one invited him to do so, his company not being desired by any of us, and Pontgibaud, calling for a deck of cards, challenged Camier to a game of piquet. As for me, I sat with my elbows on the table watching them play, though at the same time my eye occasionally fell on the spy, and I wondered what he was musing upon so deeply. But, presently, he called the drawer over to him and gave an order for some drink to be brought (since none of us had passed him over the flask, we aristocratic mousquetaires not deeming a mouchard fit bottle-companion for us), and when it came he turned his back to the table at which we sat, and asked the man a question in a low voice; though not so low a one but that I caught what he said, and the reply too.
"Where is that vagrant disposed of?" he asked. "With those other vagabonds, I suppose," letting his eye fall on the members of the fantoccini troupe, "or in one of the stables."