imitating the other's recently pointing finger, "or that," imitating his recently directed glance, "claims him it will claim her too. Should he ever get into the jaws of Madame la Bastille she will get there also. For, again, dog-like, where he goes Emérance will follow."
"Such a love is worth having," his comrade said meditatively, as though, perhaps in better days, he had once possessed, or dreamed of possessing, a similar one.
"For which very reason the Chief does not value it. If he were forced to sigh and moan for want of it and still find it refused----"
"He would never do that for any woman!"
"'Tis true. And in this case he is right. So long as he disdains her so long will she serve him heart and soul. She will intrigue for him, spy for him, work for him and, in the end, die with him if he dies 'there' or 'there'," again imitating, saturninely, the other; "or, if may be, die for him. But, if he succeeds, if he arrives at that which he hopes to reach, then--well!--they will die apart. For, succeeding, she will not be able to follow where he goes: the spot where she remains will have been left far behind by him."
"'Tis hard on her," the elder man said, still musing. "A woman's love, a true woman's love, is worth having; it is too good a thing to be wasted."
"It is the fate of woman's love where misplaced. Now," he said, "look behind you down the street. La Truaumont is coming. We shall hear of our first employment. It will not be a pleasant journey, but we shall be away from all plotting and we shall be well paid. That is better than 'there,'" and again Fleur de Mai mockingly imitated his companion.
Turning round on his chair and glancing down the street, Boisfleury saw that a burly, bull-necked man was coming along it with his light cloak thrown over one arm, since the evening had not yet become cool enough for it to be worn, and heard the end of the scabbard of his rapier scraping the cobble stones of the road as he walked, since there were no footpaths in the Rue des Franc Bourgeois.
Yet, bull-necked and burly though this man might be, there was about him something that proclaimed him of better metal than those whom he was undoubtedly coming to meet, and also that, even as they were men accustomed to obey, so he was one well used to command. For there was in him an indescribable yet easily recognised air of command, a look, an air, that told plainly enough that this man had in his life given more orders, with the certainty of those orders being obeyed, than he had ever taken. In age he was perhaps fifty, or a year or two less, he was plainly but well dressed, and, in spite of the ruggedness of his appearance, he was a well-favoured, good-looking man.
He drew near to the Taverne Gabrielle now and entered it as Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury each rose to their feet and saluted him in a manner different from that of the other, yet typical of each. The former, who, though a younger man than his companion, was evidently the principal of the two, welcomed the Captain La Truaumont more en camarade than the other; more familiarly indeed, as though feeling that, in absolute truth, he was his equal. The latter rose with some sort of quiet dignity which, while expressing the fact that he considered himself as quite a humble instrument to be bought by money, was not without a certain self-respect. Also, that dignity seemed to suggest that, once, the man's position had been different from, and better than, it was now or would ever be again.
"So," La Truaumont said, "you keep the rendezvous. It is very well. Unhappily, I have made it too late. The citizens have supped, their wives will be putting the children to bed, they will be coming forth to drink their flask and discuss their neighbours', and their own, doings. This tavern will be full ere long; we had best go elsewhere since there is much to talk over."
"There is Van den Enden's," Fleur de Mai said. "Plenty of rooms there where none can overhear or intrude! What say you, noble captain? You know the place and the man. Likewise, she is there and--well! she is in the affair and deeply too."
"'Twill do. It is there I have told the Chief I will be between ten and eleven. He will be back by then from making his last arrangements for the departure of that other." After which he said, while addressing both men, "You set out to-morrow night."
"All nights are the same to us--is it not so, Boisfleury?" Fleur de Mai exclaimed, slapping his somewhat melancholy comrade on the back as though to hearten him up.
"It is," the other said. "All nights and all roads, and all days as well. Fleur de Mai and I require little preparation. Our horses are in their stables, our clothes on our backs; our best friends," with a glance of his eye--that glance with which a Frenchman can infer a whole sentence!--towards the weapons hanging in their sashes on the wall, "are there."
"Good. You will have a light, easy task of it, a pleasant ride through the sunniest provinces of France; the best of inns to sleep in, eat in, drink in----"
"So. So. 'Tis very well," grunted Fleur de Mai approvingly.
"--and," continued La Truaumont, "your pockets filled with pistoles ere you set out, replenished with them when you arrive at your destination, and refilled again when you return to Paris. Can heart of man desire more?"
"Whatever the hearts of Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury may desire more," the former of those two worthies said, "they are not likely to get. Therefore we are content. We will guard the noble lady valiantly. If our two swords are not enough to shield her and her companion, 'tis not very like a dozen others could."
"There will be one other," La Truaumont said quietly, as now Fleur de Mai made a sign to the drawer to bring the reckoning.
"One other!" the latter exclaimed, turning round to look at La Truaumont. "What other? Any of our 'friends' by chance? Of our noble and distinguished confraternity?"
"By no means. The other blade--he is a good one--is a young man who loves the demoiselle de compagnie of the illustrious traveller; one who rides half-way upon the long journey to thereby keep his fiancée company and to act as protector, escort, squire of dames."
"Who is he? Do we know him?" While, dropping his voice, Fleur de Mai added, "Is he in the Great Venture?"
"No, to each and every question. You have never heard of him or seen him, and he knows no more of the 'Great Venture' than he who is the object of that great venture's existence knows. The man in question is an Englishman."
"An Englishman!" the two companions exclaimed together, while Fleur de Mai added, "What do we want with him?"
"Nothing--no more than he wants with you, he going only, as I have said, to be by the side of his beloved. He goes," La Truaumont continued with some little emphasis, "unpaid, unhired and untrammelled. He can turn back when half of the first portion of the journey is completed, or, arrived at the end of the first portion, he can, if it so pleases him, encompass the second with the ladies. He is well-to-do and his pockets are well lined."
"He is an Englishman all the same," Fleur de Mai grumbled.
"On one side only. His mother is a Frenchwoman."
"That's better," both the men said together. After which Fleur de Mai asked:--
"But the Venture? The Great Attempt? You say he knows nought of that. Yet he will be there as well as we when the illustrious lady has gone on her way; when Van den Enden----"
"Hush, idiot. No names."
"When the emissary, then, comes to meet her. That other whom we shall see to-night."
"Again I say he is harmless, since he knows nothing. Now, come. Let us to the
