The distance from the Candlestick was too short for the need of a
horse, so the Chevalier walked, lightly humming an old chanson of the
reign of Louis XIII, among whose royal pastimes was that of shaving his
courtiers: "Alas, my poor barber,
What is it makes you sad?"
"It is the grand king Louis,
Thirteenth of that name."
He swung into the Rue Dauphin and mounted the Pont Neuf, glancing idly
below at the ferrymen whose torches threw on the black bosom of the
Seine long wavering threads of phantom fire. The snow-clouds had
passed over, and the stars were shining; the wind was falling. The
quays were white; the Louvre seemed but a vast pile of ghostly stones.
The hands of the clock in the quaint water-tower La Samaritaine pointed
at five to eight. Oddly enough there came to the Chevalier a
transitory picture of a young Jesuit priest, winding through the bleak
hills on the way to Rouen. The glories of the world, the love of
women? What romance lay smoldering beneath that black cassock? What
secret grief? What sin? Brother Jacques? The name signified nothing.
Like all courtiers of his time, the Chevalier entertained the belief
that when a handsome youth took the orders it was in the effort to bury
some grief rather than to assist in the alleviation of the sorrows of
mankind.
He walked on, skirting the Louvre and presently entering the courtyard
of the Palais Royal. The number of flambeaux, carriages and calèches
indicated to him that Mazarin was giving a party. He lifted his cloak
from his shoulders, shook it, and threw it over his arm, and ascended
the broad staircase, his heart beating swiftly. Would he see her?
Would she be in the gallery? Would this night dispel the mystery? At
the first landing he ran almost into Captain de Guitaut, who was
descending.
"Cévennes?" cried the captain, frankly astounded.
"And freshly from Rome, my Captain. His Eminence is giving a party?"
"Are you weary of life, Monsieur?" asked the captain. "What are you
doing here? I had supposed you to be a man of sense, and on the way to
Spain. And my word of honor, you stick your head down the lion's
mouth! Follow your nose, follow your nose; it is none of my affair."
And the gruff old captain passed on down the stairs.
The Chevalier stared after him in bewilderment. Spain? . . . Weary of
life? What had happened?
"Monsieur du Cévennes?" cried a thin voice at his elbow.
The Chevalier turned and beheld Bernouin, the cardinal's valet.
"Ah!" said the Chevalier. Here was a man to explain the captain's
riddle. "Will you announce to his Eminence that I have returned from
Rome, and also explain why you are looking at me with such bulging
eyes? Am I a ghost?" The Chevalier, being rich, was one of the few
who were never overawed by the grandeur of Mazarin's valet. "What is
the matter?"