"How about mushrooms? They grow in cellars; and the thought of them
makes my mouth water."
"Paul, you are unkind to laugh."
"Have I not told you that I am drunk? Go on."
"Well, then, youth is like a flower; it must have air and sunshine, the
freedom of its graceful stem. Nature does not leap from May to
December. The year culminates in the warm breath of summer. Youth
culminates in the sunshine of love. The year bereft of summer is less
mournful than youth deprived of love. So. A young girl, married to a
man old enough to be her grandsire, misses the glory of her summer, the
realization of her convent dreams. Gradually she comprehends that she
has been cheated, cruelly cheated. What happens? She begins by
comparing her husband who is old to the gallants who are young. This
is but natural."
"And exciting," interpolated the Chevalier.
"By and by, the world as contrived by man shows her many loopholes
through which she may pass without disturbing her conscience. Ah, but
these steps are so imperceptible that one does not perceive how far one
goes till one looks back to find the way closed. Behold the irony of
fate! During the second year Monsieur le Comte falls in love with one
of Scudery's actresses, and, commits all sorts of follies for her sake.
Ah well, there were gallants enough. And one found favor in madame's
eyes; at least, so it seemed to him. In the summer months they
promenaded the gardens of La Place Royale, on the Cours de la Reine,
always at dusk. When it grew colder this gallant, who was of a
poetical turn of mind, read her verses from Voiture, Malherbe, or
Ronsard . . ."
"Not to mention Saumaise," said the Chevalier.
"He was usually seated at her feet in her boudoir. Sometimes they
discussed the merits of Ronsard, or a novel by the Marquis d'Urfe. On
my word of honor, Paul, to kiss her hand was the limit of my courage.
She fascinated; her eyes were pitfalls; men looked into them but to
tumble in. Gay one moment, sad the next; a burst of sunshine, a cloud!"
"What! you are talking about yourself?" asked the Chevalier. "Poet
that you are, how well you tell a story! And you feared to offend me?
I should have laughed. Is she pretty?"
"She is like her mother when her mother was twenty: the handsomest
woman in Paris, which is to say, in all France."
"And you love her?"
"So much as that your poet's neck is very near the ax," lowly.
"Eh? What's that?"
The poet glanced hastily about. There was no one within hearing. "I
asked Mazarin for this mission simply because I feared to remain in
Paris and dare not now return. Your poet put his name upon a piece of
paper which might have proved an epic but which has turned out to be
pretty poor stuff. This paper was in De Brissac's care; was, I say,
because it was missing the morning after his death. To-morrow, a week
or a month from now, Mazarin will have it. And . . ." Victor drew his
finger across his throat.