ed Mayenne.

I know not who was lying, for I could not tell whether the blade that
flashed now in the duke's hand came from his sleeve or from his belt.
But if he had not drawn before he had drawn now and rushed at Lucas. He
dodged and they circled round each other, wary as two matched cocks.
Lucas was strictly on the defensive; Mayenne, the less agile by reason
of his weight, could make no chance to strike. He drew off presently.

"I'll have your neck wrung for this," he panted.

"For what, monsieur?" asked Lucas, imperturbably. "For defending
myself?"

Mayenne let the charge go by default.

"For coming to me with the tale of your failures. Nom de dieu, do I
employ you to fail?"

"We are none of us gods, monsieur. You yourself lost Ivry."

Mayenne backed over to his chair and seated himself, laying his knife on
the table in front of him. His face smoothed out to good humour--no mean
tribute to his power of self-control. For the written words can convey
no notion of the maddening insolence of Lucas's bearing--an insolence so
studied that it almost seemed unconscious and was thereby well-nigh
impossible to silence.

"Sit down," bade the duke, "and tell me."

Lucas, standing at the foot of the table, observed:

"They turned you out of your bed, monsieur, to see me. It was
unnecessary severity. My tale will keep till morning."

"By Heaven, it shall not!" Mayenne shouted. "Beware how much further you
dare anger me, you Satan's cub!"

He was fingering the dagger again as if he longed to plunge it into
Lucas's gullet, and I rather marvelled that he did not, or summon his
guard to do it. For I could well understand how infuriating was Lucas.
He carried himself with an air of easy equality insufferable to the
first noble in the land. Mayenne's chosen role was the unmoved, the
inscrutable, but Lucas beat him at his own game and drove him out into
the open of passion and violence. It was a miracle to me that the man
lived--unless, indeed, he were a prince in disguise.

"Satan's cub!" Lucas repeated, laughing. "Our late king had called me
that, pardieu! But I knew not you acknowledged Satan in the family."

"I ordered Antoine to wake me if you returned in the night," Mayenne
went on gruffly. "When I heard you had been here I knew something was
wrong--unless the thing were done."

"It is not done. The whole plot is ruined."

"Nom de dieu! If it is by your bungling--"

"It was not by my bungling," Lucas answered