LITMIR.BIZ

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apartments. On leaving the Duc d’Alençon, the latter had gone to his room to change his clothes and had left again at once.

      “He probably has decided to take supper with Margot,” said the King. “He was very pleasant with her today, at least so it seemed to me.”

      He went to the queen’s apartments. Marguerite had brought back with her the Duchesse de Nevers, Coconnas, and La Mole, and was having a supper of preserves and pastry with them.

      Charles knocked at the hall door, which was opened by Gillonne. But at sight of the King she was so frightened that she scarcely had sufficient presence of mind to courtesy, and instead of running to inform her mistress of the august visit she was to have, she let Charles enter without other warning than the cry that had escaped her. The King crossed the antechamber, and guided by the bursts of laughter advanced towards the dining-room.

      “Poor Henriot!” said he, “he is enjoying himself without a thought of evil.”

      “It is I,” said he, raising the portière and showing a smiling face.

      Marguerite gave a terrible cry. Smiling as he was, his face appeared to her like the face of Medusa. Seated opposite the door, she had recognized him at once. The two men turned their backs to the King.

      “Your Majesty!” cried the queen, rising in terror.

      The three other guests felt their heads begin to swim; Coconnas alone retained his self-possession. He rose also, but with such tactful clumsiness that in doing so he upset the table, and with it the glass, plate, and candles. Instantly there was complete darkness and the silence of death.

      “Run,” said Coconnas to La Mole; “quick! quick!”

      La Mole did not wait to be told twice. Springing to the side of the wall, he began groping with his hands for the sleeping-room, that he might hide in the cabinet that opened out of it and which he knew so well. But as he stepped across the threshold he ran against a man who had just entered by the secret corridor.

      “What does all this mean?” asked Charles, in the darkness, in a tone which was beginning to betray a formidable accent of impatience. “Am I such a mar-joy that the sight of me causes all this confusion? Come, Henriot! Henriot! where are you? Answer me.”

      “We are saved!” murmured Marguerite, seizing a hand which she took for that of La Mole. “The King thinks my husband is one of our guests.”

      “And I shall let him think so, madame, you may be sure,” said Henry, answering the queen in the same tone.

      “Great God!” cried Marguerite, hastily dropping the hand she held, which was that of the King of Navarre.

      “Silence!” said Henry.

      “In the name of a thousand devils! why are you whispering in this way?” cried Charles. “Henry, answer me; where are you?”

      “Here, sire,” said the King of Navarre.

      “The devil!” said Coconnas, who was holding the Duchesse de Nevers in a corner, “the plot thickens.”

      “In that case we are doubly lost,” said Henriette.

      Coconnas, brave to the point of rashness, had reflected that the candles would have to be lighted sooner or later, and thinking the sooner the better, he dropped the hand of Madame de Nevers, picked up a taper from the midst of the débris, and going to a brazier blew on a piece of coal, with which he at once made a light. The chamber was again illuminated. Charles IX. glanced around inquiringly.

      Henry was by the side of his wife, the Duchesse de Nevers was alone in a corner, while Coconnas stood in the centre of the room, candle-stick in hand, lighting up the whole scene.

      “Excuse me, brother,” said Marguerite, “we were not expecting you.”

      “So, as you may have perceived, your Majesty filled us with strange terror,” said Henriette.

      “For my part,” said Henry, who had surmised everything, “I think the fear was so real that in rising I overturned the table.”

      Coconnas glanced at the King of Navarre as much as to say:

      “Good! Here is a man who understands at once.”

      “What a frightful hubbub!” repeated Charles IX. “Your supper is ruined, Henriot; come with me and you shall finish it elsewhere; I will carry you off this evening.”

      “What, sire!” said Henry, “your Majesty will do me the honor?”

      “Yes, my Majesty will do you the honor of taking you away from the Louvre. Lend him to me, Margot, I will bring him back to you tomorrow morning.”

      “Ah, brother,” said Marguerite, “you do not need my permission for that; you are master.”

      “Sire,” said Henry, “I will get another cloak from my room, and will return immediately.”

      “You do not need it, Henriot; the cloak you have is all right.”

      “But, sire,” began the Béarnais.

      “In the name of a thousand devils, I tell you not to go to your rooms! Do you not hear what I say? Come along!”

      “Yes, yes, go!” said Marguerite, suddenly pressing her husband’s arm; for a singular look from Charles had convinced her that something unusual was going on.

      “Here I am, sire,” said Henry.

      Charles looked at Coconnas, who was still carrying out his office of torch-bearer by lighting the other candles.

      “Who is this gentleman?” asked the King of Henry, eyeing the Piedmontese from head to foot. “Is he Monsieur de la Mole?”

      “Who has told him of La Mole?” asked Marguerite in a low tone.

      “No, sire,” replied Henry, “Monsieur de la Mole is not here, I regret to say. Otherwise I should have the honor of presenting him to your Majesty at the same time as Monsieur de Coconnas, his friend. They are perfectly inseparable, and both are in the suite of Monsieur d’Alençon.”

      “Ah! ah! our famous marksman!” said Charles. “Good!” Then frowning:

      “Is not this Monsieur de la Mole a Huguenot?” he asked.

      “He is converted, sire, and I will answer for him as for myself.”

      “When you answer for any one, Henriot, after what you did today, I have no further right to doubt him. But I should have liked to see this Monsieur de la Mole. However, I can meet him another time.”

      Giving a last glance about the room, Charles embraced Marguerite, took hold of the arm of the King of Navarre, and led him off.

      At the gate of the Louvre Henry wanted to speak to some one.

      “Come, come! pass out quickly, Henriot,” said Charles. “When I tell you that the air of the Louvre is not good for you this evening, the devil! you must believe me!”

      “Ventre saint gris!” murmured Henry; “and what will De Mouy do all alone in my room? I trust the air which is not good for me may be no worse for him!”

      “Ah!” exclaimed the King, when Henry and he had crossed the drawbridge, “does it suit you, Henry, to have the gentlemen of Monsieur d’Alençon courting your wife?”

      “How so, sire?”

      “Truly, is not this Monsieur de Coconnas making eyes at Margot?”

      “Who told you that?”

      “Well,” said the King, “I heard it.”

      “A mere joke, sire; Monsieur de Coconnas does make eyes at some one, but it is at Madame de Nevers.”

      “Ah, bah.”

      “I can answer to your Majesty for what I tell you.”

      Charles

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