“Well?” I cried the moment the door opened, and without giving him so much as time to enter. “What news?”
“Mironsac tells me that His Majesty is more overwrought than he has ever seen him. You are to come to the Palace at once. I have an order here from the King.”
We went in a coach, and with all privacy, for he informed me that His Majesty desired the affair to be kept secret, having ends of his own to serve thereby.
I was left to wait some moments in an ante-chamber, whilst Castelroux announced me to the King; then I was ushered into a small apartment, furnished very sumptuously in crimson and gold, and evidently set apart for His Majesty's studies or devotions. As I entered, Louis's back was towards me. He was standing--a tall, spare figure in black--leaning against the frame of a window, his head supported on his raised left arm and his eyes intent upon the gardens below.
He remained so until Castelroux had withdrawn and the door had closed again; then, turning suddenly, he confronted me, his back to the light, so that his face was in a shadow that heightened its gloom and wonted weariness.
“Voila, Monsieur de Bardelys!” was his greeting, and unfriendly. “See the pass to which your disobedience of my commands has brought you.”
“I would submit, Sire,” I answered, “that I have been brought to it by the incompetence of Your Majesty's judges and the ill-will of others whom Your Majesty honours with too great a confidence, rather than by this same disobedience of mine.”
“The one and the other, perhaps,” he said more softly. “Though, after all, they appear to have had a very keen nose for a traitor. Come, Bardelys, confess yourself that.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed without any conspicuous mirth.
“Is not a traitor one who runs counter to the wishes; of his King? And are you not, therefore, a traitor, whether they call you Lesperon or Bardelys? But there,” he ended more softly still, and flinging himself into a chair as he spoke, “I have been so wearied since you left me, Marcel. They have the best intentions in the world, these dullards, and some of them love me even; but they are tiresome all. Even Chatellerault, when he has a fancy for a jest--as in your case perpetrates it with the grace of a bear, the sprightliness of an elephant.”