dearer even than these, he best loved to reproduce in little the
tragedy which had laid the mill desolate, and it was La Mothe's
participation in that mock combat which had aroused Commines' contempt.
What boy of imagination has not revelled in such sport, living a
glorious hour beyond his age? And not a few of every nation have, in
their turn, made the glory real at the call of the country that the
blood of new generations may take fire. And Stephen La Mothe saw no
shame in such a play; saw, rather, a stimulus and an uplifting whose
effects might not altogether pass away when the play ended. So he was
France or England as the Dauphin bade him, and by turns died valiantly
or fought victoriously.

But chiefly, and to La Mothe it had its significance, the Dauphin
played the part of Jean Calvet. All children, and not children only,
love to be upon the winning side, and it told something of the trend of
the boy's deeper nature that he would rather die for France than live
for England. So would it have been the afternoon of the day La Mothe
had followed his own course to his own disaster had not Charles once
more proved the truth of Villon's observation. The dull eyes saw more
than men supposed.

"You and Ursula have quarrelled," he said, with all a boy's blunt power
of making the truth a terror. "All the way from Amboise you have not
spoken a word to each other; and you will quarrel still more if I shut
you up in the mill together. Do you be Stone, with Blaise and Marcel,
while I and Monsieur La Follette and Hugues will keep the stairs."
Then a gleam of unaccustomed humour flickered across his face; a sense
of humour was rarely a Valois characteristic. "No, I am wrong. Do you
be Calvet; I want a real battle to-day, and you will fight all the
better with Ursula looking on." As for Ursula de Vesc, she drew her
skirts together and ran up the unprotected flight of stairs humming an
air--not Stephen La Mothe's triolet, you may be sure--as if she had not
a care in the world.

So the forces arrayed themselves, Charles and the two lads from the
stables behind the clump of bushes which always served as an ambush,
and La Mothe at the doorless entrance to the mill, where he was to give
the alarm and then retreat to the upper floor where La Follette and
Hugues were posted. La Follette, who had been a lover in his day,
would have kept watch below and taken Hugues with him, but Ursula de
Vesc, in the upper room, told them