“I cannot be mistaken, Padilh,” said the other, in his starched way. “You heard the exclamation yesterday at table, and endeavored to drown it. You saved me, sir, a pang—for which I am grateful,” he added, with the air of a man compelled to acknowledge a service.
“I did my best and quickest to forestall curiosity,” answered Sir Pedro kindly. “The Constable of Castile is the only gentleman in the fleet who suspects the presence of your—your—son. And that only since yesterday; he told me as much last evening. For your precautions in Portugal have been effectual in keeping a knowledge of the matter even from most of our comrades at St. Quentin.”
“A curse fall on the name,” muttered Inique bitterly. “It is the only touchstone his memory has, and at its utterance nothing but force can stay his screams. God pity me: I act it all over in mind whenever the boy cries out as he did on the field.”
Padilh knew his associate well enough to disguise what commiseration he felt, and without noticing the interruption continued—
“Thus, señor, your secret is safe still; for as you may readily believe, the constable got as little information from my tongue as by his own at table.”
“Do you think he pronounced the name with design?” cried the maître-de-camp, his brows contracting. “If I—”
“No,” returned honest Don Pedro decidedly, “the constable is a man of worth, and would pry into no one’s affairs systematically. But his chief defect is a tendency to say or do whatever comes into his head, and that he falls into difficulty less often is perhaps owing more to luck than consideration on his part. Don’t you remember hearing the answer he made his Holiness, while a mere lad?”
“Why,” persisted the knight, regardless of the doubtful attention of his auditor, and moved by a good-natured wish to lead away from the painful topic, “the brusquerie of the whole affair made it the talk at court; where were you that you failed to hear it? The constable was sent to congratulate his Holiness on his accession to St. Peter’s chair, but the Pope taking umbrage at the youth of the ambassador, exclaimed aloud—‘What! has the King of Spain no men in his dominions, that he sends us a face without a beard?’ Whereupon the fiery boy, stretching himself up and stroking with forefinger and thumb his upper lip, where a mustache should have been but was not, said with a frown—‘Sir, had my royal master known your Holiness measured wisdom by a beard, he would doubtless have sent a he-goat to honor you!’”