ow hated and dreaded the Dauphin.

The other reason he had himself unveiled to Commines, no doubt with a
set purpose. Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set
purpose. In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a
king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great
France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin. Louis
was a statesman first and a father afterwards. So Commines must go to
Amboise, must sift, search, find--but especially find. Find what? His
question had been answered--find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge.
But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly
justified, what then? The answer to that question touched the hopes of
his ambition. Upon most men death steals unawares, but for Louis the
edge of the grave crumbled in the sight of all who served him, nor,
when the end came, would it linger in the coming. Supposing death
struck down the King while he, Commines, was still at Amboise, finding?
What then? The opportunist in Commines was vigilantly awake, that nice
sense which discriminates the rising power and clings to its skirts.
The Dauphin would be King of France. For the third time he asked
himself, What then?

It was a relief to his perplexity that a cheery full-noted whistle
broke across the question, a whistle which from time to time slipped
into a song whose words Commines could hear in part:

"Heigh-ho! Love's but a pain,
Love's but a bitter-sweet, lasts an hour:
Heigh-ho! Sunshine and rain!
If it's so brief whence comes love's power?
Wherefore go clearly,
Sweetly and dearly--"

and the song ran again into a whistle.

At the sound the gravity faded from Commines' face and the coarse set
mouth grew almost tender. It was Stephen La Mothe: and whatever the
words might be, the lad surely knew little of love when he so lightly
marred his own sentiment. A lover sighing for his mistress would have
sighed less blithesomely and to the very end of his plaint. Presently
the voice rose afresh:

"Heigh-ho! where dost thou hide,
Love, that I seek for thee, high and low?
Heigh-ho! world, thou art wide,
Heat of the summer and cold of the snow.
April so smiling,
June so beguiling,
Let us forget, love, that winter's storms blow."

Entering the narrow hall, lit only from the courtyard and with a
much-shadowed stairway rising from the further end,