Mar."

"Oh, that is it!" she cried with a little laugh, but not, I think, at my
uncouthness, though she looked me over curiously.

"He has not come himself, M. de Mar?"

"It appears not, mademoiselle."

She did not seem vastly disconcerted for all she cried in doleful tones:

"Alack! alack! I have lost. And Paul is not present to enjoy his
triumph. He wagered me a pair of pearl-broidered gloves that I could not
produce M. de Mar."

"But it is not his fault," I answered her, eagerly. "It is not M. de
Mar's fault, mademoiselle. He has been hurt to-day, and he could not
come. He is in bed of his wounds; he could not walk across his room. He
tried. He bade me lay at mademoiselle's feet his lifelong services."

"Ah, Lorance!" cried a young demoiselle in a sky-coloured gown,
"methinks you have indeed lost M. de Mar if he sends you no better
messenger of his regrets than this horse-boy."

"I have lost the gloves, that is certain and sad," Mlle. de Montluc
replied, as if the loss of the wager were all her care. "I am punished
for my vanity, mesdames et messieurs. I undertook to produce my recreant
squire and I have failed. Alas!" And she put up her white hands before
her face with a pretty imitation of despair, save that her eyes sparkled
from between her fingers.

By this time the gamesters about us had stopped their play, in a general
interest in the affair. An older lady coming forward with an air of
authority demanded:

"What is this disturbance, Lorance?"

"A wager between me and my cousin Paul, madame," she answered with
instant gravity and respect.

"Paul de Lorraine! Is he here?" the other asked, unpleased, I thought.

"Yes, madame. He dropped from the skies on us this afternoon. He is out
of the house again now."

"But while he was in the house," quoth she in sky-colour, "though he did
not find time to pay his respects to Mme. la Duchesse, he had the
leisure for considerable conversation with Mlle. de Montluc."

The other lady, whom I now guessed to be the Duchesse de Mayenne
herself, turned somewhat sharply on her cousin of Montluc.

"I do not yet hear your excuses, mademoiselle, for the introduction of a
stable-boy into my salon."

"I beg you to believe, madame, I am not responsible for it," she
protested. "Paul, when he was here, saw fit to rally me concerning M. de
Mar. Mlle. de Tavanne informed him of the count's defection and they
were pleased to be merry with me over it. I vowed I could get