Stephen La Mothe to have maintained his covert accusation--and what
else was it?--in the face of the angry surprise which needed no
expression in words.

"Was that your question? You have spied upon us all these
days--suspected us--accused us in your thoughts? You have pretended
friendship, devotion--God knows what monstrous lie--and all the while
you spied--spied. But you shall have your answer in your single word.
No, Monsieur La Mothe; such women as I am do not plot against their
King, nor teach sons to revolt against their fathers."

"Mademoiselle----" he began.

But not even the scornful indignation vouchsafed him a second glance as
she swept past him without a word. At the door she paused and, half
turning, looked back across her shoulder, a spot of scarlet on either
cheek.

"I had forgotten my message. I had already told Jean Saxe, in case I
failed to find you. The Dauphin bids you join him at the Burnt Mill at
three o'clock; but if it were not that the Dauphin's word is a command,
even to you I would say be otherwise engaged, Monsieur La Mothe, since
I must be of the party."

"But, Mademoiselle----"

He spoke to an empty room, and if Ursula de Vesc closed the door
between them with a greater vigour than the politeness strict
deportment demanded she may surely be excused. It may be that even the
angels lose their tempers at times over the follies of a blind humanity.

As to Stephen La Mothe, he stood staring at the closed door as if he
were not only alone in the room but in the very world itself; or,
rather, as if the world had suddenly dropped from under his feet and
the shock bewildered him. She had been so gracious, so very sweet and
gracious. He had been forgiven in advance; why such bitter offence? A
single word was all he had asked--one little word. Then he flushed all
over with a peculiar pricking sensation down the spine. Could it be
that she expected a very different question; one whose answer might
have been a Yes? If that were so--but it was absurd, and he called
himself many hard names for having such an idea a single moment. To
have thought such a thought of Ursula de Vesc was as preposterous as
saying she would philander in a rose garden.

CHAPTER XVIII

FRENCH AND ENGLISH

Before the coming of the Maid, that is to say more than fifty years
before Stephen La Mothe gave himself the heartache over his misreadings
of the most read chapter in the book of nature, there st