United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When I think of it, La Mothe, there is such an uncomforting resemblance between us three that I wonder which will go next." "I admit no resemblance, at least to Saxe." "Do you not? A fortnight ago he palmed off his bad wine upon me, I palmed you upon the Dauphin, and you palmed your bad verses off upon mademoiselle. Now Saxe is hung, and bah! your presentation will save us two."
"Then to save a king for France is nothing. But you are right, monsieur; the sooner the Dauphin is in Amboise the better." "Was it for this you came to Amboise?" said Villon, as La Mothe, having given Grey Roland his own time to return, halted at the inn door. The crowd had been shaken off and the two were alone.
Behind there were shouts, cries, the clatter of iron shoes upon the stones, but La Mothe heard only the muffled rhythm of galloping hoof-beats sounding through the roar of the blood swelling his temples and booming in his ears like the surf of a far-off sea. Away to the side, with a stretch of sunburnt grass between, lay the river. Let Bertrand keep to the winding road and all was well.
La Mothe now endeavored more than ever to induce me to flee, assuring me that, if I went to Montargis, I should be out of all trouble; but that if I did not, I should pay for it. He insisted on my taking himself for my director, to which I could not agree. He decried me wherever he went, and wrote to his brethren to do the same.
La Mothe flushed and was about to answer angrily, but remembering that Commines spoke for the King rather than for himself he restrained his impatience. "Uncle, is that just?" "Well, what have you discovered?" "That there is no such vile scheme as the King imagines." "Can you prove that?" "To me there is proof.
It was too late to dispute, and he was obliged to yield, but I have observed that fools yield only when they cannot help it. We tried his patience a third time by the appearance of Marechal de La Mothe, who passed the same compliment upon the company as De Bouillon had done.
"On compulsion, then," said La Mothe, giving up the signet, and thenceforward they rode in silence, not pressing their horses unduly; but it vexed him to think that Louis would not trust him to return the ring. If Stephen La Mothe was sick at heart, who could blame him or charge it to the discredit of his courage?
And in the emergency La Mothe did exactly what the circus-rider would have done he clung to both with every desperate sinew on the strain. To keep his piebald still under him he went with Villon to the Château, and that he might not part utterly from his white he left his lying lute behind him. But he was not happy: mental and spiritual unhappiness is the peculiar gift of compromise.
It was Villon who spoke. "Yes, but I do not recognize your right to see them." "My right, then," said La Mothe, "since it is against me they are directed." "Certainly; no doubt you can identify the writing." "I can," answered Ursula, stretching out her hand for the paper which would have been Beaufoy's passport to promotion but for his unlucky appetite. But it was withheld in obvious hesitation.
But thick as was the dusk, a dusk thicker than the actual degree of night because of the prevailing shadow, La Mothe saw that Commines was disturbed by an unwonted excitement. Not from his face. It was deeply lined and sternly set, the eyes veiled by gathered brows, the mouth harsh.