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Updated: June 24, 2025
Lagardere laughed again in memory of that former mirth as he made an end of speaking. Cocardasse scratched an ear and glanced at Passepoil. Passepoil scratched an ear and glanced at Cocardasse. The rest of the bravos stared with a sullen curiosity at Lagardere, who paid no heed to their gaze. "Why did you laugh?" Cocardasse asked, after a short pause.
"Courage, chanticleers!" he shouted "comrades all," and, advancing towards the table, gave Staupitz a lusty slap on the back, while Passepoil, following nervously behind him, whispered beneath his breath and behind his lifted hand a timid "Greeting, gentlemen," which was hardly audible in the buzz of voices.
Passepoil, who was always interested in affairs of the heart, put in his word. "Why doesn't he marry her?" Æsop was ready to explain that matter also: "Because Gabrielle de Caylus is already secretly married to Louis de Nevers.
Now Staupitz, Cocardasse, and Passepoil went in their turn through the main door and drew it behind them. Lagardere seated himself at the table with a sigh of relief as he heard the heavy feet trampling down the passage, but his relief did not last long. His quick ears caught a sound that was undoubtedly the click of a key in a lock, followed by the shuffle of cautiously retiring feet.
"Is it really you?" said Cocardasse, when he thought the embrace had lasted long enough, holding Passepoil firmly by the shoulders and gazing fixedly into his pale, pathetic face. Passepoil nodded. "Truly. What red star guides you to Paris?" Cocardasse dropped his voice to a whisper. "I had a letter." Passepoil whispered in reply: "So had I."
Cocardasse and Passepoil, drawing deep breaths such as Io may have drawn when freed from her gadfly, looked down and saw, as they believed, Gabrielle standing between them. The seeming Gabrielle moved on, on a third journey round the Pond of Diana, and her escort accompanied her, confident that all was well. In the mean time, Gabrielle was appealing to the gentlemen who surrounded her.
Staupitz and his companions seemed to place implicit confidence in the superior diplomatic powers of their Gascon comrade, and to have been seriously impressed by the gravity of his statement concerning the thrust of Nevers, so death-dealing, so unwardable, so almost magically fatal, for they readily agreed to his proposition. Places were rapidly found for Cocardasse and Passepoil at the table.
It was not for them, and they knew it, to display such knowledge of the great world as might be aired by Cocardasse and Passepoil, and when Cocardasse spoke with so much significance about the thrust of Nevers, and questioned them with so much insistence about the thrust of Nevers, it was plain that he spoke from the brimmings of a wisdom richer than their own.
For, indeed, the faces of the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to help you," he said, knowingly. Lagardere's laughter became more pronounced. "To help me?" he cried, and he shook with amusement at the absurdity of the words.
"In all the tumult of that tragic night I thought I saw two figures standing apart thought they might be, must be, my old friends. That is why I have sent for you." "Sent for us?" Cocardasse echoed in astonishment. "Was it you who " Passepoil questioned, equally surprised. "Why, of course it was," Lagardere answered. "Sit down and listen."
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