ing he had little to fear from the King's minister.

"Poets are privileged," said Mademoiselle de Vesc. "And Monsieur
Villon has paid me a compliment: I neither understand his poetry nor
desire to." Her tone was still contemptuous and had in it no thanks to
Philip de Commines for his reproof on her behalf. She resented it,
rather, since she had no desire to owe him either gratitude or thanks.

For a moment there was a pause, a moment which seemed the prelude to a
sarcastic outbreak from one or other of those she had wilfully
irritated in that intolerance which so often goes hand in hand with a
spirit of self-sacrifice. But Stephen La Mothe interposed.

"Mademoiselle, may I have the honour of being presented to Monseigneur?"

"You?" she said, the lines deepening across her forehead. "A roadside
singer presented to the Dauphin! Surely you forget yourself--and him?"

"Even a roadside singer may be a loyal son of France," he retorted,
looking her full in the face. He keenly resented the false position
into which the King's ill-considered scheme had thrust him, but he had
gone too far to retreat. "You know best, mademoiselle, whether the
Dauphin has need of a man's honest love and devotion."

"Devotion that is here to-day, was God knows where yesterday, and will
be God knows where to-morrow! Merci! the Dauphin is indeed grateful."

"Spitfire!" murmured Villon, but so cautiously that only La Mothe heard
him. "Certainly I should have said Mademoiselle and Monseigneur. Or
better still have left the Monseigneur out altogether. You do not go
the right way. Win the girl, I tell you, and the boy will follow like
a sheep."

"Let me win her my own way," answered La Mothe, which has always been
the man's desire since Adam was in Eden with the one woman in all the
world. Then he went on aloud, "Pour your scorn on it as you will,
mademoiselle, it is devotion that will wait patiently in Amboise until
it has proved itself."

"That will wait patiently in Amboise?" she repeated. Her eyes
challenged his as she spoke, and in them there was nothing of the light
the sons of Adam have loved to see in a woman's eyes so that they might
dwell together in Paradise.

"Why not? And if a poor gentleman desires to see France in this
fashion is there any reason against it?"

"A poor gentleman, but not a poor minstrel?"

"As both I can but give my best. May I have the honour, mademoiselle?"

Her clasp upon the boy's hand mus