to-morrow. If he stays--I won't. He has the
devil's own of a sword. Hang it, my nerves are all gone to smash."

Soon some gentler thought took hold, and he smiled tenderly. He brought
forth the rose, turned it this way and that, studied it, stroked it,
held it to his lips as a lover holds the hand of the woman he loves. Her
rose; somehow his heart told him that she had laughed because Beauvais
had stooped in vain.

"Ah, Maurice," he said, "you are growing over fond. But why not? Who
will know? To have loved is something."

He crept into bed; but sleep refused him its offices, and he tossed
about in troubled dreams. He fought all kinds of duels with all sorts
of weapons. He was killed a half dozen times, but the archbishop
always gave him something which rekindled the vital spark. A thousand
Beauvaises raged at him. A thousand princesses were ever in the
background, waiting to be saved. He swore to kill these Beauvaises, and
after many fruitless endeavors, he succeeded in smothering them in their
gray pelisses. Then he woke, as dreamers always wake when they pass some
great dream-crisis, and found himself in a deadly struggle with a pillow
and a bed-post. He laughed and sprang out of bed.

"It's no use, I can't sleep. I am an old woman."

So he lit his pipe and sat dreaming with his eyes open, smoking and
smoking, until the sickly pallor of dawn appeared in the sky, and he
knew that day had come.

CHAPTER XVIII. A MINOR CHORD AND A CHANGE OF MOVEMENT

Marshal Kampf, wrapt in his military cloak, with the peak of his
cap drawn over his eyes, sat on one of the rustic benches in the
archbishop's gardens and reflected. The archbishop had announced an
informal levee, the first since the king's illness. He had impressed the
Marshal with the fact that his presence was both urgent and necessary.
Disturbed as he was by the unusual command, the Marshal had arrived an
hour too early. Since the prelate would not rise until nine, the Marshal
told the valet that he would wait in the gardens.

An informal levee, he mused. What was the meaning of it? Had that master
of craft and silence found a breach in the enemy's fortifications? He
rubbed the chill from his nose, crossed and re-crossed his legs and
teetered till the spurs on his boots set up a tuneful jingle.

So far as he himself was concerned, he was not worried. The prelate knew
his views and knew that he would stand or fall with them. He had never
looked for benef