St. Martin's Summer. Rafael Sabatini

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      Having concluded, Monsieur de Garnache sat back in his chair, and threw one leg over the other, fixing his eyes upon the Seneschal’s face and awaiting his reply.

      On that gross countenance before him he saw fall the shadow of perplexity. Tressan was monstrous ill-at-ease, and his face lost a good deal of its habitual plethora of colour. He sought to temporize.

      “Does it not occur to you, monsieur, that perhaps too much importance may have been attached to the word of this child—this Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye?”

      “Does it occur to you that such has been the case, that she has overstated it?” counter-questioned Monsieur de Garnache.

      “No, no. I do not say that. But—but—would it not be better—more—ah—satisfactory to all concerned, if you yourself were to go to Condillac, and deliver your message in person, demanding mademoiselle?”

      The man from Paris looked at him a moment, then stood up suddenly, and shifted the carriages of his sword back to their normal position. His brows came together in a frown, from which the Seneschal argued that his suggestion was not well received.

      “Monsieur,” said the Parisian very coldly, like a man who contains a rising anger, “let me tell you that this is the first time in my life that I have been concerned in anything that had to do with women and I am close upon forty years of age. The task, I can assure you, was little to my taste. I embarked upon it because, being a soldier and having received my orders, I was in the unfortunate position of being unable to help myself. But I intend, monsieur, to adhere rigidly to the letter of these commands. Already I have endured more than enough in the interests of this damsel. I have ridden from Paris, and that means close upon a week in the saddle—no little thing to a man who has acquired certain habits of life and developed a taste for certain minor comforts which he is very reluctant to forgo. I have fed and slept at inns, living on the worst of fares and sleeping on the hardest, and hardly the cleanest, of beds. Ventregris! Figure to yourself that last night we lay at Luzan, in the only inn the place contained—a hovel, Monsieur le Seneschal, a hovel in which I would not kennel a dog I loved.”

      His face flushed, and his voice rose as he dwelt upon the things he had undergone.

      “My servant and I slept in a dormitory’—a thousand devils! monsieur, in a dormitory! Do you realize it? We had for company a drunken vintner, a pedlar, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, and two peasant women; and they sent us to bed without candles, for modesty’s sake. I ask you to conceive my feelings in such a case as that. I could tell you more; but that as a sample of what I have undergone could scarcely be surpassed.”

      “Truly-truly outrageous,” sympathized the Seneschal; yet he grinned.

      “I ask you—have I not suffered inconvenience enough already in the service of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye that you can blame me if I refuse to go a single step further than my orders bid me?”

      The Seneschal stared at him now in increasing dismay. Had his own interests been less at issue he could have indulged his mirth at the other’s fiery indignation at the inconveniences he recited. As it was, he had nothing to say; no thought or feeling other than what concerned finding a way of escape from the net that seemed to be closing in about him—how to seem to serve the Queen without turning against the Dowager of Condillac; how to seem to serve the Dowager without opposing the wishes of the Queen.

      “A plague on the girl!” he growled, unconsciously uttering his thoughts aloud. “The devil take her!”

      Garnache smiled grimly. “That is a bond of sympathy between us,” said he. “I have said those very words a hundred times—a thousand times, indeed—between Paris and Grenoble. Yet I scarcely see that you can damn her with as much justice as can I.

      “But there, monsieur; all this is unprofitable. You have my message. I shall spend the day at Grenoble, and take a well-earned rest. By this time to-morrow I shall be ready to start upon my return journey. I shall have then the honour to wait upon you again, to the end that I may receive from you the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. I shall count upon your having her here, in readiness to set out with me, by noon to-morrow.”

      He bowed, with a flourish of his plumed hat, and would with that have taken his departure but that the Seneschal stayed him.

      “Monsieur, monsieur,” he cried, in piteous affright, “you do not know the Dowager of Condillac.”

      “Why, no. What of it?”

      “What of it? Did you know her, you would understand that she is not the woman to be driven. I may order her in the Queen’s name to deliver up Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But she will withstand me.”

      “Withstand you?” echoed Garnache, frowning into the face of this fat man, who had risen also, brought to his feet by excitement. “Withstand you—you, the Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny? You are amusing yourself at my expense.”

      “But I tell you that she will,” the other insisted in a passion. “You may look for the girl in vain tomorrow unless you go to Condillac yourself and take her.”

      Garnache drew himself up and delivered his answer in a tone that was final.

      “You are the governor of the province, monsieur, and in this matter you have in addition the Queen’s particular authority—nay, her commands are imposed upon you. Those commands, as interpreted by me, you will execute in the manner I have indicated.”

      The Seneschal shrugged his shoulders, and chewed a second at his beard.

      “It is an easy thing for you to tell me what to do. Tell me, rather, how to do it, how to overcome her opposition.”

      “You are very sure of opposition—strangely sure, monsieur,” said Garnache, looking him between the eyes. “In any case, you have soldiers.”

      “And so has she, and the strongest castle in southern France—to say nothing of the most cursed obstinacy in the world. What she says, she does.”

      “And what the Queen says her loyal servants do,” was Garnache’s rejoinder, in a withering tone. “I think there is nothing more to be said, monsieur,” he added. “By this time to-morrow I shall expect to receive from you, here, the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. A demain, donc, Monsieur le Seneschal.”

      And with another bow the man from Paris drew himself erect, turned on his heel, and went jingling and creaking from the room.

      The Lord Seneschal sank back in his chair, and wondered to himself whether to die might not prove an easy way out of the horrid situation into which chance and his ill-starred tenderness for the Dowager of Condillac had thrust him.

      At his desk sat his secretary, who had been a witness of the interview, lost in wonder almost as great as the Seneschal’s own.

      For an hour Tressan remained where he was, deep in thought and gnawing at his beard. Then with a sudden burst of passion, expressed in a round oath or two, he rose, and called for his horse that he might ride to Condillac.

CHAPTER III. THE DOWAGER’S COMPLIANCE

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