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"How strange! That is the name of my dearest friend." It was Gonzague's turn to be surprised, but he never was known to betray an emotion. It was with an air of complete indifference that he asked: "Who is she?" And Flora answered, simply: "A girl I knew and loved when we were living in Spain."
The startled guests stared at one another, terrified by the terror on Gonzague's face, amazed at the metamorphosis of the hunchback, shuddering at the name of Lagardere. The first to recover courage, composure, and resolution was Gonzague himself. He sprang from the table to where his friends stood together and drew his sword.
On the day after the fair at Neuilly, Louis de Gonzague was seated in the room of the Three Louis busily writing at a table. By his side stood Peyrolles, his gorgeous attire somewhat unpleasantly accentuating the patent obsequiousness with which he waited upon his master's will. For a while Gonzague's busy pen formed flowing Italian characters upon the page before him.
Wondering, laughing, whispering, Gonzague's guests drew back and ranged themselves against the golden doors, and Gabrielle was left standing alone in the middle of the room. The hunchback caught up a chair and carried it to where she stood, making a gesture which requested her to be seated. Gabrielle looked at him scornfully. "I have nothing to say to you. I trust to the justice of France."
In contrast, too, were the very garments of the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant colors clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note, and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten its solemnity.
He turned on his heel, and walked leisurely away from the two groups of gentlemen. The elders, having little in common with Gonzague's friends, followed his example, and drifted off together, talking to one another in a low voice of the gallant gentleman whose name had suddenly been recalled to their memories at that moment. Gonzague's gang stared at one another, feeling vaguely discomfited.
Perhaps the most remarkable proof of Gonzague's astuteness, of Gonzague's suppleness, was afforded by the manner in which he had succeeded in holding the favor of the great cardinal through all the long years of Richelieu's triumph, and yet at the same time in retaining so completely the friendship of the king.
Gonzague's smile soothed her fears. "Hide nothing from her, for I am sure you have nothing to hide. Speak the loving words that a mother would like to hear." With a grateful look at her newly found protector, Flora darted from the room, and Gonzague was left alone.
Æsop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The best." As he moved slowly away from the king's tent a little crowd of Gonzague's friends Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, Nocé, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and Montaubert all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat singular figure in such a scene.
He told them of the life feud between the family of Caylus and the family of Nevers, a feud as bitter as that of the Capulets and Montagues of old time. He told them of Gonzague's passions, Gonzague's poverty. He told them all about Monsieur Peyrolles, Gonzague's discreet and infamous factotum.
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