'Very good. Then now let us hear what the news is,' I said drily.
'Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault.'
'Ah! And what?'
He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his hands.
'You have not heard?' he exclaimed in astonishment.
'Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow.'
'You have not heard that his Eminence is disgraced?'
I stared at him. 'Not a word,' I said.
He set down the pot.
'Then your Excellency must have made a very long journey indeed,' he said with conviction. 'For it has been in the air a week or more, and I thought that it had brought you back. A week? A month, I dare say. They whisper that it is the old Queen's doing. At any rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his commissions and displaced his officers. There are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. Everywhere his enemies are lifting up their heads; and I hear that he has relays of horses set all the way to the coast that he may fly at any moment. For what I know he may be gone already.'
'But, man--' I said, surprised out of my composure. 'The King!
You forget the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him and he will dance. And they will dance too!' I added grimly.
'Yes,' Frison answered eagerly. 'True, your Excellency, but the King will not see him. Three times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal has driven to the Luxembourg and stood like any common man in the ante-chamber, so that I hear it was pitiful to see him. But his Majesty would not admit him. And when he went away the last time I am told that his face was like death! Well, he was a great man, and we may be worse ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If the nobles did not like him, he was good to the traders and the bourgeoisie, and equal to all.'
'Silence, man! Silence, and let me think,' I said, much excited.
And while he bustled to and fro, getting my supper, and the firelight played about the snug, sorry little room, and the child toyed with his plaything, I fell to digesting this great news, and pondering how I stood now and what I ought to do. At first sight, I know, it seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to sit still. In a few hours the man who had taken my bond would be powerless, and I should be free; in a few hours I might smile at him. To all appearance the dice had fallen well for me. I had done a great thing, run a great risk, won a woman's love; and, after all, I was not to pay the penalty.
But a word which fell from Frison as he fluttered round me, pouring out the broth and cutting the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my satisfaction.
'Yes, your Excellency,' he said, confirming something he had stated before and which I had missed, 'and I am told that the last time he came into the gallery there was not a man of all the scores who had been at his levee last Monday would speak to him.
They fell off like rats--just like rats--until he was left standing alone. And I have seen him!'--Frison lifted up his eyes and his hands and drew in his breath--'Ah! I have seen the King look shabby beside him! And his eye! I would not like to meet it now.'
'Pish!' I growled. 'Someone has fooled you. Men are wiser than that.'
'So? Well, your Excellency understands,' he answered meekly.
'But--there are no cats on a cold hearth.'
I told him again that he was a fool. But for all that, and my reasoning, I felt uncomfortable. This was a great man, if ever a great man lived, and they were all leaving him; and I--well, I had no cause to love him. But I had taken his money, I had accepted his commission, and I had betrayed him. These three things being so, if he fell before I could--with the best will in the world--set myself right with him, so much the better for me.
