nd arched brows;
the same unconscious trick of flushing in moments of excitement. Even
the colour of the hair was the same, with the curious ruddy copper tint
running through the brown in certain lights.

Yes; it was Suzanne's self, Suzanne whom he had loved as he had never
loved Helene de Chambes, his wife these nine years past! Suzanne whom
he still loved with that reverence which belongs alone to the gentle
dead: Suzanne for whom even now his spirit cried out in these rare
moments when it broke through the cynical, selfish crust which had
hardened upon him since Suzanne died. So for Suzanne's sake he called
Stephen his son, though there was no such difference in age, nor any
drop of blood relationship.

"Do you know," he went on, gravely tender in the memory of the dead
woman, "that a king's service brings with it a king's risks?"

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me coward when he wrote to you?"

"No; he said many things which it were better a boy should not know
were said. Conceit is only too ready to take youth by the arm."

"And am I such a boy? Surely four-and-twenty----"

"Are you so old? It always comes as an astonishment when those we love
are no longer children. It is then we realize how the years have
passed."

"So old, Uncle. Four-and-twenty is no boy."

"A man in years, a boy at heart. Be a boy at heart as long as you can,
Stephen, for so will you keep your conscience clean before God. And
yet what use has the King for a boy's service?"

"Teach the boy to be a man in thought that he may find a use for
himself, Uncle; and who can do that so well as you?"

Commines let his hands fall to his sides and turned away, pacing the
room with short strides. His man's thoughts were not always such as he
would care to teach Stephen La Mothe.

"To the King's service every man must bring his own thought."

"And did Monsieur de Perche call me fool when he wrote to you?"

"No: but the little things of Marbahan are poor training for the
greater things of Valmy, of Blois, of Plessis, of Amboise, of Paris."

"But truth and faithfulness and courage are the same everywhere, and
whether at Marbahan or Valmy a man can but serve God and the King with
the best wits God has given him, and that I'll do."

"Aye!" said Commines drily, "but what of that Heigh-ho song of yours?
When love knocks on one door the service of the King may get bundled
out of the other."

Stephen La Mothe laughed a hearty, wholeso