The Florentines.

M. Etienne, forgetting his manners, snatched the papers from his father’s hand, turning them about and about, not able to believe his senses. A man hurled over a cliff, plunging in one moment from flowery lawns into a turbulent sea, might feel as he did.

“But the seal!” he stammered.

“The seal was genuine,” Monsieur answered, startled as he. “How your fellow could have the king’s signet

“See,” M. Etienne cried, scratching at the fragments. “This is it. Dunce that I am not to have guessed it! Look, there is a layer of paper embedded in the wax. Look, he cut the seal out, smeared hot wax on the false packet, pressed in the seal, and curled the new wax over the edge. It was cleverly done; the seal is but little thicker, little larger than before. It did not look tampered with. Would you have suspected it, Monsieur?” he demanded piteously.

“I had no thought of it. But this Peyrot it may not yet be too late

“I will go back,” M. Etienne cried, darting to the door. But Monsieur laid forcible hands on him.

“Not you, Etienne. You were hurt yesterday; you have not closed your eyes for twenty-four hours. I don’t want a dead son. I blame you not for the failure; not another man of us all would have come so near success.”

“Dolt! I should have known he could not deal honestly,” M. Etienne cried. “I should have known he would trick me. But I did not think to doubt the crest. I should have opened it there in the inn, but it was Lemaitre’s sealed packet. However, Peyrot sat down to my dinner: I can be back before he has finished his three kinds of wine.”

“Stop, Etienne,” Monsieur commanded. “I forbid you. You are gray with fatigue. Vigo shall go.”

M. Etienne turned on him in fiery protest; then the blaze in his eyes flickered out, and he made obedient salute.

“So be it. Let him go. I am no use; I bungle everything I touch. But he may accomplish something.”

He flung himself down on the bench in the corner, burying his face in his hands, weary, chagrined, disheartened. A statue-maker might have copied him for a figure of Defeat.

“Go find Vigo,” Monsieur bade me, “and then get you to bed.”

I obeyed both orders with all alacrity.

I too smarted, but mine was the private’s disappointment, not the general’s who had planned the campaign. The credit of the rescue was none of mine; no more was the blame of failure. I need not rack myself with questioning, Had I in this or that done differently, should I not have triumphed? I had done only what I was told. Yet I was part of the expedition; I could not but share the grief. If I did not wet my pillow with my tears, it was because I could not keep awake long enough. Whatever my sorrows, speedily they slipped from me.

I roused with a start from deep, dreamless sleep, and then wondered whether, after all, I had waked. Here, to be sure, was Marcel’s bed, on which I had lain down; there was the high gable-window, through which the westering sun now poured. There was the wardrobe open, with Marcel’s Sunday suit hanging on the peg; here were the two stools, the little image of the Virgin on the wall. But here was also something else, so out of place in the chamber of a page that I pinched myself to make sure it was real. At my elbow on the pallet lay a box of some fine foreign wood, beautifully grained by God and polished by grateful man. It was about as large as my lord’s despatch-box, bound at the edges with shining brass and having long brass hinges wrought in a design of leaves and flowers. Beside the box were set three shallow trays, lined with blue velvet, and filled full of goldsmith’s work-glittering chains, linked or twisted, bracelets in the form of yellow snakes with green eyes, buckles with ivory teeth, glove-clasps thick with pearls, ear-rings and finger-rings with precious stones.

I stared bedazzled from the display to him who stood as showman. This was a handsome lad, seemingly no older than I, though taller, with a shock of black hair, rough and curly, and dark, smooth face, very boyish and pleasant. He was dressed well, in bourgeois fashion; yet there was about him and his apparel something, I could not tell what, unfamiliar, different from us others.

He, meeting my eye, smiled in the friendliest way, like a child, and said, in Italian:

“Good day to you, my little gentleman.”

I had still the uncertain feeling that I must be in a dream, for why should an Italian jeweller be displaying his treasures to me, a penniless page? But the dream was amusing; I was in no haste to wake.

I knew my Italian well enough, for Monsieur’s confessor, the Father Francesco, who had followed him into exile, was Florentine; and as he always spoke his own tongue to Monsieur, and I was always at the duke’s heels, I picked up a deal of it. After Monsieur’s going, the father, already a victim, poor man, to the falling-sickness, of which he died, stayed behind with us, and I found a pricking pleasure in talking with him in the speech he loved, of Monsieur’s Roman journey, of his exploits in the war of the Three Henrys. Therefore the words came easily to my lips to answer this lad from over the Alps:

“I give you good day, friend.”

He looked somewhat surprised and more than pleased, breaking at once into voluble speech:

“The best of greetings to you, young sir. Now, what can I sell you this fine day? I have not been half a week in this big city of yours, yet already I have but one boxful of trinkets left. They are noble, open-handed customers, these gallants of Paris. I have not to show them my wares twice, I can tell you. They know what key will unlock their fair mistresses’ hearts. And now, what can I sell you, my little gentleman, to buy your sweetheart’s kisses?”

“Nay, I have no sweetheart,” I said, “and if I had, she would not wear these gauds.”

“She would if she could get them, then,” he retorted. “Now, let me give you a bit of advice, my friend, for I see you are but young: buy this gold chain of me, or this ring with this little dove on it, see, how cunningly wrought, and you’ll not lack long for a sweetheart.”

His words huffed me a bit, for he spoke as if he were vastly my senior.

“I want no sweetheart,” I returned with dignity, “to be bought with gold.”

“Nay,” he cried quickly, “but when your own valour and prowess have inflamed her with passion, you should be willing to reward her devotion and set at rest her suspense by a suitable gift.”

I looked at him uneasily, for I had a suspicion that he might be making fun of me. But his countenance was as guileless as a kitten’s.

“Well, I tell you again I have no sweetheart and I want no sweetheart,” I said; “I have no time to bother with girls.”

At once he abandoned the subject, seeing that he was making naught by it.

“The messer is very much occupied?” he asked with exceeding deference. “The messer has no leisure for trifling in boudoirs; he is occupied with great matters? Oh, that can I well believe, and I cry the messer’s pardon. For when the mind is taken up with affairs of state, it is distasteful to listen even for a moment to light talk of maids and jewels.”

Again I eyed him challengingly; but he, with face utterly unconscious, was sorting over his treasures. I made up my mind his queer talk was but the outlandish way of a foreigner. He looked at me again, serious and respectful.

“The messer must often be engaged in great risks, in perilous encounters. Is it not so? Then he will do well to carry ever over his heart the sacred image of our Lord.”

He held up to my inspection a silver rosary from which depended a crucifix of ivory, the sad image of the dying Christ carved upon it. Even in Monsieur’s chapel, even in the church at St. Quentin, was nothing so masterfully wrought as this figurine to be held in the palm of the hand. The tears started in my eyes to look at it, and I crossed myself in reverence. I bethought me how I had trampled on my crucifix; the stranger all unwittingly had struck a bull’s-eye. I had committed grave offence against God, but perhaps if, putting gewgaws aside, I should give my all for this cross, he would call the account even. I knew nothing of the value of a carving such as this, but I remembered I was not moneyless, and I said, albeit somewhat shyly:

“I cannot take the rosary. But I should like well the crucifix. But then, I have only ten pistoles.”

“Ten pistoles!” he repeated contemptuously. “Corpo di Bacco! The workmanship alone is worth twenty.” Then, viewing my fallen visage, he added: “However, I have received fair treatment in this house, beshrew me but I have! I have made good sales to your young count. What sort of master is he, this M. lé Comte de Mar?”

“Oh, there’s nobody like him,” I answered, “except, of course, M. lé Duc.”

“Ah, then you have two masters?” he inquired curiously, yet with a certain careless air. It struck me suddenly, overwhelmingly, that he was a spy, come here under the guise of an honest tradesman. But he should gain nothing from me.

“This is the house of the Duke of St. Quentin,” I said. “Surely you could not come in at the gate without discovering that?”

“He is a very grand seigneur, then, this duke?”

“Assuredly,” I replied cautiously.

“More of a man than the Comte de Mar?”

I would have told him to mind his own business, had it not been for my hopes of the crucifix. If he planned to sell it to me cheap, thereby hoping to gain information, marry, I saw no reason why I should not buy it at his price and withhold the information. So I made civil answer:

“They are both as gallant gentlemen as any living. About this cross, now

“Oh, yes,” he answered at once, accepting with willingness well feigned, I thought the change of topic. “You can give me ten pistoles, say you? ’Tis making you a present of the treasure. Yet, since I have received good treatment at the hands of your master, I will e’en give it to you. You shall have your cross.”

With suspicions now at point of certainty, I drew out my pouch from under my pillow, and counted into his hand the ten pieces which were my store. My rosary I drew out likewise; I had broken it when I shattered the cross, but one of the inn-maids had tied it together for me with a thread, and it served very well. The Italian unhooked the delicate carving from the silver chain and hung it on my wooden one, which I threw over my neck, vastly pleased with my new possession. Marcel’s Virgin was a botch compared with it. I remembered that mademoiselle, who had given me half my wealth, the half that won me the rest, had bidden me buy something in the marts of Paris; and I told myself with pride that she could not fail to hold me high did she know how, passing by all vanities, I had spent my whole store for a holy image. Few boys of my age would be capable of the like. Certes, I had done piously, and should now take a further pious joy, my purchase safe on my neck, in thwarting the wiles of this serpent. I would play with him awhile, tease and baffle him, before handing him over in triumph to Vigo.

Sure enough, he began as I had expected:

“This M. de Mar down-stairs, he is a very good master, I suppose?”

“Yes,” I said, without enthusiasm.

“He has always treated you well?”

I bethought myself of the trick I had played successfully with the officer of the burgess guard.

“Why, yes, I suppose so. I have only known him two days.”

“But you have known him well? You have seen much of him?” he demanded with ill-concealed eagerness.

“But not so very much,” I made tepid answer. “I have not been with him all the time of these two days. I have seen really very little of him.”

“And you know not whether or no he be a good master?”

“Oh, pretty good. So-so.”

He sprang forward to deal me a stinging box on the ear.

I was out of bed at one bound, scattering the trinkets in a golden rain and rushing for him. He retreated before me. It was to save his jewels, but I, fool that I was, thought it pure fear of me. I dashed at him, all headlong confidence; the next I knew he had somehow twisted his foot between mine, and tripped me before I could grapple. Never was wight more confounded to find himself on the floor.

I was starting up again unhurt when I saw something that made me to forget my purpose. I sat still where I was, with dropped jaw and bulging eyes. For his hair, that had been black, was golden.

“Ventre bleu!” I said.

“And so you know not you little villain, whether you have a good master or not?”

“But how was I to dream it was monsieur?” I cried, confounded. “I knew there was something queer about him about you, I mean about the person I took you for, that is. I knew there was something wrong about you that is to say, I mean, I thought there was; I mean I knew he wasn’t what he seemed you were not. And Peyrot fooled us, and I didn’t want to be fooled again.”

“Then I am a good master?” he demanded truculently, advancing upon me.

I put up my hands to my ears.

“The best, monsieur. And monsieur wrestled well, too.”

“I can’t prove that by you, Felix,” he retorted, and laughed in my nettled face. “Well, if you’ve not trampled on my jewels, I forgive your contumacy.”

If I had, my bare toes had done them no harm. I crawled about the floor, gathering them all up and putting them on the bed, where I presently sat down myself to stare at him, trying to realize him for M. lé Comte. He had seated himself, too, and was dusting his trampled wig and clapping it on again.

He had shaved off his mustaches and the tuft on his chin, and the whole look of him was changed. A year had gone for every stroke of the razor; he seemed such a boy, so particularly guileless! He had stained his face so well that it looked for all the world as though the Southern sun had done it for him; his eyebrows and, lashes were dark by nature. His wig came much lower over his forehead than did his own hair, and altered the upper part of his face as much as the shaving of the lower. Only his eyes were the same. He had had his back to the window at first, and I had not noted them; but now that he had turned, his eyes gleamed so light as to be fairly startling in his dark face like stars in a stormy sky.

“Well, then, how do you like me?”

“Monsieur confounds me. It’s witchery. I cannot get used to him.”

“That’s as I would have it,” he returned, coming over to the bedside to arrange his treasures. “For if I look new to you, I think I may look so to the Hotel de Lorraine.”

“Monsieur goes to the Hotel de Lorraine as a jeweller?” I cried, enlightened.

“Aye. And if the ladies do not crowd about me ” he broke off with a gesture, and put his trays back in his box.

“Well, I wondered, monsieur. I wondered if we were going to sell ornaments to Peyrot.”

He locked the box and proceeded solemnly and thoroughly to damn Peyrot. He cursed him waking, cursed him sleeping; cursed him eating, cursed him drinking; cursed him walking, riding, sitting; cursed him summer, cursed him winter; cursed him young, cursed him old; living, dying, and dead. I inferred that the packet had not been recovered.

“No, pardieu! Vigo went straight on horseback to the Bonne Femme, but Peyrot had vanished. So he galloped round to the Rue Tournelles, whither he had sent two of our men before him, but the bird was flown. He had been home half an hour before, he left the inn just after us, had paid his arrears of rent, surrendered his key, and taken away his chest, with all his worldly goods in it, on the shoulders of two porters, bound for parts unknown. Gilles is scouring Paris for him. Mordieu, I wish him luck!”

His face betokened little hope of Gilles. We both kept chagrined silence.

“And we thought him sleeping!” presently cried he.

“Well,” he added, rising, “that milk’s spilt; no use crying over it. Plan a better venture; that’s the only course. Monsieur is gone back to St. Denis to report to the king. Marry, he makes as little of these gates as if he were a tennis-ball and they the net. Time was when he thought he must plan and prepare, and know the captain of the watch, and go masked at midnight. He has got bravely over that now; he bounces in and out as easily as kiss my hand. I pray he may not try it once too often.”

“Mayenne dare not touch him.”

“What Mayenne may dare is not good betting. Monsieur thinks he dares not. Monsieur has come through so many perils of late, he is happily convinced he bears a charmed life. Felix, do you come with me to the Hotel de Lorraine?”

“Ah, monsieur!” I cried, bethinking myself that I had forgotten to dress.

“Nay, you need not don these clothes,” he interposed, with a look of wickedness which I could not interpret. “Wait; I’m back anon.”

He darted out of the room, to return speedily with an armful of apparel, which he threw on the bed.

“Monsieur,” I gasped in horror, “it’s woman’s gear!”

“Verily.”

“Monsieur! you cannot mean me to wear this!”

“I mean it precisely.”

“Monsieur!”

“Why, look you, Felix,” he laughed, “how else am I to take you? You were at pains to make yourself conspicuous in M. de Mayenne’s salon; they will recognize you as quickly as me.”

“Oh, monsieur, put me in a wig, in cap and bells, an you like! I will be monsieur’s clown, anything, only not this!”

“I never heard of a jeweller accompanied by his clown. Nor have I any party-colour in my armoires. But since I have exerted myself to borrow this toggery, and a fine, big lass is the owner, so I think it will fit, you must wear it.”

I was like to burst with mortification; I stood there in dumb, agonized appeal.

“Oh, well, then you need not go at all. If you go, you go as Félicie. But you may stay at home, if it likes you better.”

That settled me. I would have gone in my grave-clothes sooner than not go at all, and belike he knew it. I began arraying myself sullenly and clumsily in the murrain petticoats.

There was a full kirtle of gray wool, falling to my ankles, and a white apron. There was a white blouse with a wide, turned-back collar, and a scarlet bodice, laced with black cords over a green tongue. I was soon in such a desperate tangle over these divers garments, so utterly muddled as to which to put on first, and which side forward, and which end up, and where and how by the grace of God to fasten them, that M. Etienne, with roars of laughter, came unsteadily to my aid. He insisted on stuffing the whole of my jerkin under my blouse to give my figure the proper curves, and to make me a waist he drew the lacing-cords till I was like to suffocate. His mirth had by this time got me to laughing so that every time he pulled me in, a fit of merriment would jerk the laces from his fingers before he could tie them. This happened once and again, and the more it happened the more we laughed and the less he could dress me. I ached in every rib, and the tears were running down his cheeks, washing little clean channels in the stain.

“Felix, this will never do,” he gasped when at length he could speak. “Never after a carouse have I been so maudlin. Compose yourself, for the love of Heaven. Think of something serious; think of me! Think of Peyrot, think of Mayenne, think of Lucas. Think of what will happen to us now if Mayenne know us for ourselves.”

“Enough, monsieur,” I said. “I am sobered.”

But even now that I held still we could not draw the last holes in the bodice-point nearly together.

“Nay, monsieur, I can never wear it like this,” I panted, when he had tied it as tight as he could. “I shall die, or I shall burst the seams.” He had perforce to give me more room; he pulled the apron higher to cover gaps, and fastened a bunch of keys and a pocket at my waist. He set a brown wig on my head, nearly covered by a black mortier, with its wide scarf hanging down my back.

“Hang me, but you make a fine, strapping grisette,” he cried, proud of me as if I were a picture, he the painter. “Felix, you’ve no notion how handsome you look. Dame! you defrauded the world when you contrived to be born a boy.”

“I thank my stars I was born a boy,” I declared. “I wouldn’t get into this toggery for any one else on earth. I tell monsieur that, flat.”

“You must change your shoes,” he cried eagerly. “Your hobnails spoil all.”

I put one of his gossip’s shoes on the floor beside my foot.

“Now, monsieur, I ask you, how am I to get into that?”

“Shall I fetch you Vigo’s?” he grinned.

“No, Constant’s,” I said instantly, thinking how it would make him writhe to lend them.

“Constant’s best,” he promised, disappearing. It was as good as a play to see my lord running errands for me. Perhaps he forgot, after a month in the Rue Coupejarrets, that such things as pages existed; or, more likely, he did not care to take the household into his confidence. He was back soon, with a pair of scarlet hose, and shoes of red morocco, the gayest affairs you ever saw. Also he brought a hand-mirror, for me to look on my beauty.

“Nay, monsieur,” I said with a sulk that started anew his laughter. “I’ll not take it; I want not to see myself. But monsieur will do well to examine his own countenance.”

“Pardieu! I should say so,” he cried. “I must e’en go repair myself; and you, Felix, Félicie, must be fed.”

I was in truth as hollow as a drum, yet I cried out that I had rather starve than venture into the kitchen.

“You flatter yourself,” he retorted. “You’d not be known. Old Jumel will give you the pick of the larder for a kiss,” he roared in my sullen face, and added, relenting: “Well, then, I will send one of the lackeys up with a salver. The lazy beggars have naught else to do.”

I bolted the door after him, and when the man brought my tray, bade him set it down outside. He informed me through the panels that he would go drown himself before he would be content to lie slugabed the livelong day while his betters waited on him. I trembled for fear in his virtuous scorn he should take his fardel away again. But he had had his orders. When, after listening to his footsteps descending the stairs, I reached out a cautious arm, the tray was on the floor. The generous meat and wine put new heart into me; by the time my lord returned I was eager for the enterprise.

“Have you finished?” he demanded. “Faith, I see you have. Then let us start; it grows late. The shadows, like good Mussulmans, are stretching to the east. I must catch the ladies in their chambers before supper. Come, we’ll take the box between us.”

“Why, monsieur, I carry that on my shoulders.”

“What, my lass, on your dainty shoulders? Nay, ’twould make the townsfolk stare.”

I gnawed my lip in silence; he exclaimed:

“Now, never have I seen a maid fresh from the convent blush so prettily. I’d give my right hand to walk you out past the guard-room.”

I shrank as a snail when you touch its horns. He cried:

“Marry, but I will, though!”

Now I, unlike Sir Snail, had no snug little fortress to take refuge in; I might writhe, but I could not defend myself.

“As you will, monsieur,” I said, setting my teeth hard.

“Nay, I dare not. Those fellows would follow us laughing to the doors of Lorraine House itself. I’ve told none of this prank; I have even contrived to send all the lackeys out of doors on fools’ errands. We’ll sneak out like thieves by the postern. Come, tread your wariest.”

On tiptoe, with the caution of malefactors, we crept from stair to stair, giggling under our breath like the callow lad and saucy lass we looked to be. We won in safety to the postern, and came out to face the terrible eye of the world.