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Later that afternoon Charles spoke his thanks for himself, and said them with the dignity of a Dauphin of France struggling through the shy manners of a self-conscious schoolboy. But interpenetrating both dignity and self-conscious diffidence there was a frankness which told La Mothe that Ursula de Vesc's influence was already at work.
For him Ursula de Vesc's curt No! stood against the world; but Philip de Commines was the King's justice in Amboise, and against Jean Saxe's accusation her denial would carry no weight no weight at all. But, though the gesture was one of helplessness, Villon chose to construe it into consent. "Good!" he said cordially, "it is best, much the best.
Then he shifted his eyes, and as they fell upon the Dauphin, caught in Ursula de Vesc's arms, the skirt of the white robe half wrapped round him, his head almost upon her breast, he straightened himself with an effort. "Monseigneur," he began, "the King " but the words choked in his throat. His coarse, healthy face had gone wan and grey, now it flushed and a rush of tears filled his eyes.
Then it had been obedience to the King, service to the man to whom he owed everything and a duty to France. Now, more tremendous than all, Ursula de Vesc's life was thrown suddenly into the scale. That was Commines' plain statement. Nor was he conscious of any resentment against Commines.
And the boy shook off the restraining hand impatiently. "You come from Valmy and are like all the rest of them. Monsieur La Mothe, let us go and thank Grey Roland." But as he followed the Dauphin out of the room La Mothe asked himself whether, even with Ursula de Vesc's help, the end of the story could possibly be Love, Peace, and Faith.
The Dauphin had already mounted when La Mothe and Villon crossed the roadway with their horses following, led by drunken Michel's substitute, and his greeting to both was of the curtest. The apologue of the night before was neither forgotten nor forgiven. But with Ursula de Vesc's grey eyes smiling at him La Mothe cared little for the boy's dour looks.
Commines' gibe had come back to him, and for pastime he would make a verse of his love song, let Ursula de Vesc's eyes be blue, grey, or black! "Live I in loving, and love I to live," was a good line, a line Francois Villon himself could not have bettered, but how should the next line run? "Heigho! Sweetest of strife!" Strife! The word jarred the context, but where would he get a better? Wife?
Stephen, if the King is right and Mademoiselle de Vesc's love has overcome both fear and weakness, he is right, too, when he links Charles with her in her abominable plot." "But why has he sent " La Mothe broke off lamely, remembering in time that he had no right to say to Commines, Why has he sent such a message of a father's love as lies in those saddle-bags I see in the corner?
"Monsieur La Mothe of where?" asked the boy gravely. "Of Landless, in the Duchy of Lackeverything," replied La Mothe, bowing with an equal gravity, and at the adroit parrying of a difficult question the smile crept down from Ursula de Vesc's eyes until it loosened the hard lines of the mouth, and bent them to that Cupid's bow La Mothe so much desired to see.
The Dauphin, that woman Ursula de Vesc, Hugues " "It's a lie," cried La Mothe, shaking himself free from Commines' arm. "A lie, a lie. I have Mademoiselle de Vesc's own word for it that it is a lie." "And I have proof that it is true." "Proof? Whose proof?" Commines hesitated to reply. Already he had overstepped his purpose.
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