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Updated: June 20, 2025
The hunchback struck an attitude as he spoke, and strove to twist his evil countenance into a look of inspiration. Peyrolles was all eagerness now. "Let me see the girl," he pleaded. Æsop shook his head. "By-and-by. It is understood that if Gonzague accepts the girl as Nevers's child he takes me into his service in Paris. Eh?" Peyrolles nodded. "That is understood."
Peyrolles now drew back again with a cautious look on his face as he answered, cautiously: "My master, Prince Gonzague, must be satisfied. Where is this girl?" Æsop continued: "Here. I found her in Madrid, the dancing-girl of a band of gypsies. She is the right age. The girl is clever, she is comely, her hair is of the Nevers shade, her color of the Nevers tint.
Æsop answered the question addressed to Peyrolles. "I can tell you. The man you can neither find nor bind." Gonzague started. "Lagardere?" Æsop nodded. "Lagardere, whom I will give into your hands if you wish." Gonzague caught at his promise eagerly. "When?" he asked. "To-night, at the king's ball," Æsop answered.
Then Gonzague's partisans slowly filed out of the room, Chavernay, as usual, smiling, the others unusually grave. Gonzague turned to Peyrolles, who had returned from his task of convoying Flora to her apartments. "Who has done all this?" he asked. He thought he was alone with his henchman, but he was mistaken. Æsop had quietly entered the room, and was standing at his side.
Peyrolles went to the door of the antechamber, and returned in an instant with Cocardasse and Passepoil, now both gorgeously dressed in an extravagantly modish manner, which became them, if possible, less than their previous rags and tatters. Both men saluted Gonzague profoundly, and both started at seeing the hunchback standing apart from them with averted face.
"Except you and me, you were going to say." Peyrolles nodded gloomily. "As Æsop," he said, "has been in Spain all these years hunting Lagardere " "Yes," Gonzague interrupted, "and never finding him." Peyrolles bowed. "True, your highness, but at least up to now he has kept Lagardere on the Spanish side of the frontier, kept Lagardere in peril of his life.
Peyrolles crossed the grass, his course followed curiously by the eyes of Gonzague's friends, till he halted at the caravan and knocked at the door. Flora put out her head, and, recognizing Peyrolles, greeted him with an eager smile. "The time has come," said Peyrolles, in a low voice, "for you to dance to this gentleman." Flora touched him eagerly on the arm. "Which is my prince?" she asked.
Even as he spoke the plaintive sound of a horn was heard far away in the distance. Peyrolles spoke: "The first signal. The shepherds have been told to watch and warn at the wood-ends and the by-path and the causeway to the bridge. Nevers has entered the forest." The noble shadow gave a little laugh. "He is riding to his death, the fool amorist. Come."
Cocardasse deprecated this display of interest with a gentle wave of the hand, and, leaning back in his chair, eyed Peyrolles coolly, sure that he plied him with a vise. And Cocardasse was right. Peyrolles hesitated, but also Peyrolles reflected.
Peyrolles lifted to his eyes the elaborately laced kerchief he had been carrying in his right hand, and appeared to be a prey to violent emotions. "Your father was his dearest friend," he murmured, in a tearful voice. "He would see his features in you." Flora clapped her hands. "I hope he will."
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