truck a chord in my
memory. I turned to see who the speaker was, and encountered no other
than M. de Bruhl himself; who, with a flushed and angry face, was
listening to the explanation which a friend was pouring into his ear.
Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and
remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash
that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had
any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la
Vire from his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence led
my thoughts into a new channel. The determination to punish him began to
take form in my mind, and very quickly I regained my composure. Still I
was for giving him one chance. Accordingly I stooped once more to Madame
de Bruhl's ear, and begged her to spare me the embarrassment of telling
my tale. But then, finding her pitiless, as I expected, and the rest of
the company growing more and more insistent, I hardened my heart to go
through with the fantastic notion which had occurred to me.

Indicating by a gesture that I was prepared to obey, and the duchess
crying for a hearing, this was presently obtained, the sudden silence
adding the king himself to my audience. 'What is it?' he asked, coming
up effusively, with a lap-dog in his arms. 'A new scandal, eh?'

'No, sire, a new tale-teller,' the duchess answered pertly. 'If your
Majesty will sit, we shall hear him the sooner.'

He pinched her ear and sat down in the chair which a page presented.
'What! is it Rambouillet's GRISON again?' he said with some surprise.
'Well, fire away, man. But who brought you forward as a Rabelais?'

There was a general cry of 'Madame de Bruhl!' whereat that lady shook
her fair hair, about her face, and cried out for someone to bring her a
mask.

'Ha, I see!' said the king drily, looking pointedly at M. de Bruhl, who
was as black as thunder. 'But go on, man.'

The king's advent, by affording me a brief respite, had enabled me to
collect my thoughts, and, disregarding the ribald interruptions, which
at first were frequent, I began as follows: 'I am no Rabelais, sire,' I
said, 'but droll things happen to the most unlikely. Once upon a time it
was the fortune of a certain swain, whom I will call Dromio, to arrive
in a town not a hundred miles from Blois, having in his company a nymph
of great beauty, who had been entrusted to his care by her parents. He
had not more than