long, and you return to Amboise to
find some one else has gathered your lily while you lagged? That would
be a chilly winter in the garden of life where you left young spring."

La Mothe sat silent. What reply was possible? That the advice was
well meant he knew, but he had never before realized that a peremptory
recall might come any moment from Valmy. And it was not impossible.
Louis, aged and ailing, spurred, too, by the desire for the comfort of
his son's love while life was still good to the taste, would be
impatient of delay. These ten days which had passed with the swiftness
of a summer's morning would be long as a wintry month to the lonely
father. But to the devout lover, in him haste savoured of presumption.
Ursula de Vesc was his good friend and comrade; could he hope for more
than that in so short a time? In making haste might he not lose all he
had gained? Besides, in the service and worship of the one dear woman
in the world, a man is his own High Priest, and none save himself may
enter into the Holy of Holies. And what could this peach-picker of
Paris pavements know of such a Holy of Holies? Nothing, absolutely
nothing. So he sat silent, doubly tongue-tied by doubt and reverence.

But for these, Villon, who read his face with disconcerting ease, had
no great respect.

"Eh!" he said briskly, "is the advice good?"

"Is good advice easy to follow?"

"Yes, when it is palatable, which is not often: commonly it has a
bitter taste in the swallowing. Or do you think it will be all the
same fifty years hence? By all the Muses, there's an idea! I must
write the 'Ballad of Fifty Years to Come.' Let me see--let me see--'m
yes, the first verse might run like this:

"Where is La Mothe, that lover gay,
Or Francois Villon, poet splendid!
Madonna of the eyes of grey,
Or Charles whom Bertrand nearly ended?
D'Argenton, are his manners mended?
Or wisest Louis, swift to pardon
Though so grievously offended?
Ask of the Scents of Amboise garden!

"There!" and he drummed the empty mug on the flat of the table in mock
applause which was not all unreal, "what do you think of that for the
first draft? It does justice to me and to you, chronicles little
Charles' escape, kicks your Monsieur d'Argenton in passing, and takes
off its hat to the King all in a breath."

"Tear it up," answered La Mothe. "Will the King thank you for hinting
he will be dead and forgotten fifty years hen