d pompously, "the King of Spain--"

"Is the King of Spain," I answered, cutting him short without much
ceremony. "But in the Arsenal of Paris, which, for the present, is my
house, I am king. And I brook no usurpers, M. d'Evora."

He assented to that with a constrained smile.

"Then I can say no more," he answered. "I have warned you that the man
is a rogue. If you will still entertain him, I wash my hands of it.
But I fear the consequences, M. de Rosny, and, frankly, it lessens my
opinion of your sagacity."

Thereat I bowed in my turn, and after the exchange of some civilities
he took his leave. Considering his application after he was gone, I
confess that I found nothing surprising in it; and had it come from a
man whom I held in greater respect I might have complied with it in an
indirect fashion. But though it might have led me under some
circumstances to discard Diego, naturally, since it confirmed his story
in some points, and proved besides that he was not a persona grata at
the Spanish Embassy, it did not lead me to value him less. And as
within the week he was so fortunate as to defeat La Varenne's champion
in a great match at the Louvre, and won also a match, at M. de
Montpensier's which put fifty crowns into my pocket, I thought less and
less of d'Evora's remonstrance; until the king's return put it quite
out of my head. The entanglement with Mademoiselle d'Entragues, which
was destined to be the most fatal of all Henry's attachments, was then
in the forming; and the king plunged into every kind of amusement with
fresh zest. The very day after his return he matched his marker, a
rogue, but an excellent player, against my man; and laid me twenty
crowns on the event, the match to be played on the following Saturday
after a dinner which M. de Lude was giving in honour of the lady.

On the Thursday, however, who should come in to me, while I was sitting
alone after supper, but Maignan: who, closing the door and dismissing
the page who waited there, told me with a very long face and an air of
vast importance that he had discovered something.

"Something?" I said, being inclined at the moment to be merry. "What?
A plot to reduce your perquisites, you rascal?"

"No, my lord," he answered stoutly. "But to tap your excellency's
secrets."

"Indeed," I said pleasantly, not believing a word of it. "And who is
to hang?"

"The Spaniard," he answered in a low voice.

That sobered me, by putting the m