Count Hannibal

By-and-by, feeling himself again, he became aware that two of Madame's

women were peering at him through the open doorway. He looked that way

and they fled giggling into the court; but in a moment they were back

again, and the sound of their tittering drew his eyes anew to the door.

It was the custom of the day for ladies of rank to wait on their

favourites at table; and he wondered if Madame were with them, and why

she did not come and serve him herself.

But for a while longer the savour of the roasted game took up the major

part of his thoughts; and when prudence warned him to desist, and he sat

back, satisfied after his long fast, he was in no mood to be critical.

Perhaps--for somewhere in the house he heard a lute--Madame was

entertaining those whom she could not leave? Or deluding some who might

betray him if they discovered him?

From that his mind turned back to the streets and the horrors through

which he had passed; but for a moment and no more. A shudder, an emotion

of prayerful pity, and he recalled his thoughts. In the quiet of the

cool room, looking on the sunny, vine-clad court, with the tinkle of the

lute and the murmurous sound of women's voices in his ears, it was hard

to believe that the things from which he had emerged were real. It was

still more unpleasant, and as futile, to dwell on them. A day of

reckoning would come, and, if La Tribe were right, the cause would rally,

bristling with pikes and snorting with war-horses, and the blood spilled

in this wicked city would cry aloud for vengeance. But the hour was not

yet. He had lost his mistress, and for that atonement must be exacted.

But in the present another mistress awaited him, and as a man could only

die once, and might die at any minute, so he could only live once, and in

the present. Then vogue la galere!

As he roused himself from this brief reverie and fell to wondering how

long he was to be left to himself, a rosebud tossed by an unseen hand

struck him on the breast and dropped to his knees. To seize it and kiss

it gallantly, to spring to his feet and look about him were instinctive

movements. But he could see no one; and, in the hope of surprising the

giver, he stole to the window. The sound of the lute and the distant

tinkle of laughter persisted. The court, save for a page, who lay asleep

on a bench in the gallery, was empty. Tignonville scanned the boy

suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by the court ladies, and

if Madame would play a prank on him, this was a thing to be reckoned

with. But a boy it seemed to be, and after a while the young man went

back to his seat.