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"May I vend you a benevolence, gentleman?" Huguette asked, disguising her voice in an unfamiliar gruffness. Noel waved aside importunacy. "Pass your ways, pilgrim. I am in no mood for motley." He turned away, but the persistent pilgrim followed him. "Are you in a maid's mood, or a mood for a maid?" Noel stopped impatiently. "Are you pander as well as pilgrim? I wait for a woman."
The dim light from the fire only seemed to accentuate and intensify the darkness through which the two lanterns burned, pale planets of yellow fire, in the hands of Casin and Colin. Villon snatched the one and Thibaut took the other. There was a moment of intense silence; then the voice of Huguette cried out of the blackness: "Are you ready?"
"Let her stay for the present," Villon answered, and in obedience to a sign from Noel the four girls came timidly forward with downcast eyes, while Huguette remained apart, leaning composedly against the image of Pan and surveying the scene with a good-humoured indifference.
Casin Cholet bluntly proposed to lend the cit a slap on the chops; and Huguette enquired with every emphasis of impoliteness: "What's his age to you, sobersides?" But Villon quietly waved his turbulent companions into tranquility. "Patience, damsels," he said blandly. "Patience, good comrades of the Cockleshell.
Huguette answered: "The fair fool Noel, advised by me, has persuaded the king to see an astrologer here to-night when the gardens are quiet. Noel believes that the astrologer will advise the king to fling his Grand Constable out of the window and call Messire Noel in at the door, but the comrades of the cockleshell really mean much more mischief.
There was, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that the Duchess Huguette should have been so proud of so many victories, and in such various sports; but now, for the first time, a doubt had entered her mind. "If anyone wishes to excel in an art, he must have gained a living by it."
From behind the shadow of the statue of Pan there came a warning shriek, and swiftly between Villon and Thibaut a slim green figure darted and slim green arms clasped Villon around the neck. The dagger of Thibaut drove deep into the soft body of Huguette. With a curse Thibaut turned and, sweeping aside the archers who tried to stop him, disappeared down the nearest alley.
His thoughts were busy with the events of the past week; if Katherine had been disdainful, the girl Huguette had been kind, and the Golden Scull had found the dainty soldier a frequent visitor.
The Duchess Huguette de Lionzac was very much infatuated with herself, but then she had a perfect right to be, and who, in her place, would not have shown a spice of conceit? There was no success which she had wished for, that she had not attained.
"She is his mother!" she said angrily. "You all had mothers, I suppose? Let him alone!" Jehan le Loup unwillingly sheathed his weapon; Huguette dragged him back to the table; Villon replaced the spit, which had somewhat burned his fingers, and sat down by his mother's side on the settle, in peace. "Did they frighten you, mammy?" he whispered. "But they meant no harm.
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