"Again again!" she said, "is it to be treachery again?"
"Not treachery, dear lady," cooed the father; "but when you go to tickle trout, you do not stand on the bank and throw in great stones. You work softly underneath, and so guide the fish to a place from which they cannot escape."
"Is it Guise?" demanded the girl, breaking fiercely through these dulcet explanations.
"As you say," smiled the Jesuit; "himself and no other."
"And what is to be my particular infamy?"
"Child, beware of your speech," said the Jesuit; "there is no infamy in the service of Holy Church, of the Society, and of your King."
"To a well-known air!" said the girl, sneeringly; "well, I will sing the song. I know the music."
And she went and placed herself by the window which overlooked the pleasaunce of the Duke of Guise.
"Salome," she said, "come hither and comb out my tresses!"
And with the graceful ease of strong young arms, she pulled out a tortoise-shell pin here and a mother-of-pearl fastening there till a flood of hair escaped, falling down her back, with dark, coppery lights striking out of the duskier coils, and the lingering sunset illuminating the ripples of fine-spun gold.
"Thus goes the exercise," she said with a cold anger, "the Holy Society trains us well. But for this, and all else, God will enter into judgment with you and your like!"
But, heedless of her words, the priest was already stooping and peering behind the curtain.
"There they go," he whispered eagerly, "Guise and Mayenne together, Bar and the Cardinal behind ah, there, it takes! Gripped netted what did I tell the King? He has his kerchief out. Quick, Valentine, yours! What, you have left it behind? Here is mine. Twice I tell you, twice and your hand upon your heart. Ah, he salutes! He will soon call upon the envoy of the King of Spain now. I wager we shall have him here in the morning before breakfast! Ah, what news this will be to send by the
courier to-night to your to King Philip! He will sleep sound, I warrant. And remember, to-morrow, speak him fair when he comes. All depends on that. I shall not be far away. I shall know and report to the King. It shall not be well with you otherwise. Guise must go to Blois to the King of France. He must take his gentlemen with him. No sulking in his own territories. To Blois, and face it out like a man."
The girl rose from the window and came back into the chamber. She opened the door, and with a gesture of proud weariness indicated the dark corridor without.
"Your turn is served," she said, "now go!"
But Mariana, a cunning smile on his face, held out his hand.
"Give me first my kerchief!" he said.
The girl crushed the embroidered linen into a ball in her hand, holding it at her side and slightly behind. Then she threw it out of the window with a gesture of contempt. The next moment the door slammed unceremoniously in Father Mariana's face. But the church historian was not in the least put out. He laid his finger slowly to the side of his nose and smiled stilly.
He descended the stairs to the entresol, and there from a window which overhung the court he looked forth in time to see the Duke of Guise stooping to pick up something white from the ground.
He saw him kiss it and thrust it into the breast of his black velvet doublet.
And the worthy Jesuit chuckled softly, saying to himself, "There are things in this world which are cheap even at the loss of my best broidered kerchief!"
As Mariana had foretold, the Duke of Guise and his brother the young De Bar called upon the Marquis Osorio the following day. That morning the Duke had made the life of his valet a burden to him while dressing, and he now appeared gorgeous in a suit of dark blue velvet trimmed with gold lace. A cape of silk was over one arm, and he carried Mariana's embroidered kerchief carefully in his hand.
In his most stately fashion the Marquis Osorio received the head of the League. He presented his credentials as to a reigning monarch, and began to talk of revolutions of Holy Church, concerning the culpable laxness of the Pope in his own interests, and the fidelity of the King of Spain to his ideals and to his allies. It was evident, however, that Guise paid but scant heed. His ears were elsewhere. As for De Bar, he stared insolently about him, now at the ambassador, now at the tapestry on the walls, and again and most often out at the window. But his brother listened, almost without disguise, to a slight noise, which came occasionally into the room from without. There was, for instance, the rustling of a woman's silken robe in the passage. Voices also, that sounded faint, pleading, expostulatory, cut into the even rise and fall of Castilian diplomacy.
"For these reasons my royal master judged it expedient to send me as his representative, charged with "
Guise twisted impatiently this way and that in his black oaken chair, in vain efforts to catch what was going on outside. De Bar observed his brother's uneasiness, and as the Lorraine princes went at that time in constant fear of assassination, it did not cost him two thoughts, even in the house of the Spanish ambassador, to rise and throw the door wide open.