took a turn in that spacious antechamber among the members of the lesser nobility and the subaltern officers who peopled it. They made up an oddly assorted crowd. Most of the officers glittered in uniforms, the purchase of which had rendered them bankrupt. The others and their womenfolk were in garments which showed every stage of wear, from some that were modishly cut and still bore the bloom of freshness, to others which, rubbed and soiled and threadbare, were at the last point of shabbiness. But those who wore them had in common with the rest at least the same assumptions of haughtiness, the same air of quiet, well-bred insolence, the same trick of looking down their aristocratic noses. All the airs and graces of the Œil de Bœuf were to be found here.
André-Louis suffered with indifference the cool stares and the levelling of quizzing-glasses to scan his unpowdered hair, his plain long riding-coat, and the knee-boots from which yesterday's mud had been laboriously removed. But he was not required to endure it long. Madame de Plougastel did not keep him waiting, and by her friendly, wistful smile of welcome this great lady shattered the scorn with which those lesser folk had presumed to regard her visitor.
'My good André!' She set a fine hand upon his arm. 'You bring me news of Quentin?'
'He is better today, Madame. He shows signs, too, of a recovery of spirit. I came, madame ... Oh, to be frank, I came with the hope to see Aline.'
'And me, André?' There was gentle reproach in the tone.
'Madame!' he said on a low note of protest.
She understood and sighed. 'Ah, yes, my dear. And they would not let you pass. You are out of favour. Monsieur d'Artois was not pleased with your politics, and Monsieur does not regard you with too friendly an eye. But soon this will cease to matter, and you will be safely back at Gavrillac. Perhaps in the years to come I shall see you there sometime ...' She broke off. Her eyes dwelt upon his lean, keen, resolute face, and they were sadly tender. 'Wait here. I'll bring Aline to you.'
When Aline came, a ripple of fresh interest almost of mild excitement ran through the antechamber. There were whisperings, and from one woman, whose whisper was not hushed enough, André-Louis caught the words: '... the Kercadiou ... and Madame de Balbi will need to look to herself ... She will require all her wit to make up for her fading beauty ... Not that she was ever beautiful ...'
The allusion to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou was obscure. But André-Louis was moved to inward anger by a suspicion that already the scandalmongers of the court were preying upon her name.
She stood before him radiant in her gown of coral taffetas with rich point de Venise about its décolletage. She was a little out of breath. She had but a moment, she declared. She had slipped away for just a word with him. She was in attendance upon Madame, and must not neglect her duties. Kindly she deplored in him the indiscretion which had procured his exclusion from the presence. But he could depend upon her to do her best to make his peace for him with the Princes.
He received the proposal coldly.
'I would not have you in any man's debt on my account, Aline.'
She laughed at him. 'Faith, sir, you must learn to curb this lordly independence. I have already spoken to Monsieur, though not yet with much result. The moment is not propitious. It is of ...' She broke off. 'But no. I must not tell you that.'
If his lips smiled the crooked, half-mocking smile she knew so well, his eyes were grave. 'So that now you are to have secrets from me.'
'Why, no. What does it matter, after all? Their Highnesses are more mistrustful than usual because there is an emissary from the Assembly secretly in Coblentz at present.'
André-Louis's face betrayed nothing. 'Secretly?' said he. 'A secret of Polichinelle, it seems.'
'Hardly that, and, anyway, the emissary believes that no one knows save the Elector with whom he had come to treat.'
'And the Elector has betrayed him?'
Aline appeared to be very well informed. 'The Elector is in a dilemma. He confided in Monsieur d'Entragues. Monsieur d'Entragues, of course, has told the Prince.'
'I don't perceive the need for mystery. Who is the man? Do you know?'
'I believe he is a person of some consequence in the Assembly.'
'Naturally, if he comes as an ambassador to the Elector.' With assumed idleness he asked: 'They intend him no harm, I suppose? Messieurs the émigrés, I mean.'
'You do not imagine that they will allow him to depart again. Only Monsieur de Batz is so squeamish as to advocate that. He has reasons of his own.'
'Do they know, then, where to find this man?'
'Of course. He has been tracked.'
André-Louis continued with his air of half-interest. 'But what can they do? After all, he is an ambassador. Therefore his person is sacred.'
'To the Elector, André. But not to messieurs the émigrés.'
'We are in the Electorate, are we not? What can the émigrés do here?'
Aline's sweet face was solemn. 'They will deal with him, I suppose, as his kind deals with ours.'
'By way of showing that there is no fundamental difference between the two.' He laughed to dissemble the depth of his interest and concern. 'Well, well! It's a piece of wanton stupidity for which they may pay bitterly, and it's a gross breach of the Elector's hospitality, since it may bring down grave consequences upon him. Do you say, Aline, that the Princes are in this murder business? Or is it just the intention of some reckless hotheads?'
She became alarmed. Although he kept his voice low, an undertone of vehemence, of indignation quivered in it.
'I have talked too freely, André. You have led me on. Forget what I have said.'
He dismissed the matter with a careless shrug. 'What difference if I remember?'
He was to display that difference the moment she had left him to return to her duties. He quitted the palace on the instant, and rode back into the town at the gallop. Leaving his horse at the stable of the Three Crowns, from which he had hired it, he made his way at speed through the thickening dusk to the little street behind the Liebfraukirche, praying that already he might not come too late.
He had assurance almost as soon as he had entered the street that he was in time, but no more than in time; already the assassins were at their post. At his appearance three shadows melted into the archway of a porte-cochère almost opposite Le Chapelier's lodging.
He reached the door, and knocked with the butt of his riding-whip. This whip was his only weapon, and he blamed himself now for having neglected to arm himself.
The door was opened by the same broad woman whom yesterday he had seen.
'Monsieur ... The gentleman who is lodged with you? Is he within?'
She scanned him by the light of the lamp in the passage behind her.
'I don't know. But if he is, he will receive no visitors.'
'Tell him,' said André-Louis, 'that it is the friend who walked home with him last evening. You know me again, don't you?'
'Wait there.' She closed the door in his face.
Presently, whilst waiting, André-Louis dropped his whip. He stooped to recover it, and was some time about it. This because he was looking between his legs at the porte-cochère behind him. The three heads were there in view, peering out, to watch him.
At last he was admitted. In the front room above-stairs, Le Chapelier, neat of apparel as a petit-maître, a gold-rimmed spy-glass dangling from a ribbon round his neck, smiled a welcome.
'You've come to tell me that you have changed your mind; that you will return with me.'
'A bad guess, Isaac. I've come to tell you that there is more than a doubt about your own return.'
The tired eyes flamed into alertness, the fine arched brows were raised in surprise. 'What's