Chapter VIII

This time Nanon was without apprehension; Francinette's intelligence had reassured her completely, and she was even very anxious to talk with Biscarros. He was ushered in, therefore, immediately upon his arrival.

Biscarros entered the room with his apron politely tucked in his belt, and cap in hand.

"You had at your house yesterday a young gentleman, Monsieur le Baron de Canolles, did you not?" said Nanon.

"What has become of him?" added the duke.

Biscarros, somewhat ill at ease, for the outrider and the six louis made him more than suspect the great personage under the _robe de chambre_, replied evasively:

"He has gone, monsieur."

"Gone?" said the duke; "really gone?"

"Really."

"Where has he gone?" Nanon asked.

"That I cannot tell you; for, in very truth, I do not know, madame."

"You know at least in which direction he went?"

"He took the Paris road."

"At what hour did he take that road?" asked the duke.

"About midnight."

"And without saying anything?" queried Nanon, timidly.

"Without saying anything; he simply left a letter, and bade me hand it to Mademoiselle Francinette."

"Well, why haven't you handed it to her, knave?" said the duke; "is that all the respect you have for a nobleman's command?"

"I did hand it to her, monsieur; I did indeed!"

"Francinette!" roared the duke.

Francinette, who was listening at the door, made but one bound from the reception-room into the bedroom.

"Why didn't you give your mistress the letter Monsieur de Canolles left for her?"

"Why, monseigneur--" murmured the maid, in deadly terror.

"Monseigneur!" thought the amazed Biscarros, shrinking into the most remote corner of the room; "Monseigneur! it must be some prince in disguise."

"I had not asked her for it," Nanon, pale as a ghost, hastened to say.

"Give it me," said the duke, extending his hand.

Poor Francinette slowly held out the letter, turning to her mistress with a look which seemed to say,--

"You see that it's no fault of mine; that imbecile of a Biscarros has ruined everything."

Two fierce gleams shot from Nanon's eyes, and pierced Biscarros in his corner. The sweat stood in great drops on the poor wretch's brow, and he would have given the six louis he had in his pocket to be standing in front of his oven with the handle of a saucepan in his hand.

Meanwhile the duke had taken the letter and opened it, and was reading. As he read, Nanon stood beside him, paler and colder than a statue, feeling as if no part of her were alive save her heart.

"What does all this mean?" queried the duke.

Nanon knew by that question that the letter did not compromise her.

"Read it aloud, and I can explain it perhaps," said she.

"'Dear Nanon,'" the duke began.

He turned to his companion, who became more composed with every second, and bore his gaze with admirable self-possession.

"'Dear Nanon,'" the duke resumed:--

"'I am availing myself of the leave of absence I owe to your
good offices, and to divert my mind, I am going for a short
gallop on the Paris road. Au revoir; I commend my fortune to
your attention.'

"_Ah ça!_ why, this Canolles is mad!"

"Mad? Why so?" rejoined Nanon.

"Does a sane man start off in this way at midnight, without a reason for so doing?"

"I should say as much," said Nanon to herself.

"Come, explain his departure to me."

"Eh! _mon Dieu!_ monseigneur," said Nanon, with a charming smile, "nothing can be easier than that."

"She, too, calls him monseigneur," muttered Biscarros. "He is a prince, beyond question."

"Well, tell me."

"What! can you not guess which way the wind blows?"

"Not in the least."

"Canolles is twenty-seven years old; he is young, handsome, thoughtless. What particular form of madness do you suppose he prefers? Love. He must have seen some fair traveller pass Master Biscarros' door, and have followed her."

"He's in love, you think?" cried the duke, smiling at the very natural reflection that, if Canolles was in love with any traveller whatsoever, he was not in love with Nanon.

"Why, yes, of course he's in love. Isn't that it, Master Biscarros?" said Nanon, enchanted to see that the duke accepted her suggestion. "Come, answer freely; have I not guessed aright?"

Biscarros thought that the moment had come to reestablish himself in the young woman's good graces by assenting freely to whatever she might say, and with a smile about four inches wide blooming upon his lips, he said,--

"In very truth, madame may be right."

Nanon stepped toward him, shuddering in spite of herself.

"It is so; is it not?" she said.

"I think so, madame," replied Biscarros, with a knowing air.

"You think so?"

"Yes; wait a moment; indeed, you open my eyes."

"Ah! tell us about it, Master Biscarros," rejoined Nanon, beginning to feel the first pricks of jealousy; "come, tell us what fair travellers tarried at your hostelry last night."

"Yes, tell us," said Monsieur d'Épernon, stretching out his legs, and making himself comfortable in an easy chair.

"There were no lady travellers," said Biscarros.

Nanon breathed again.

"But," continued the inn-keeper, not suspecting that every word he uttered made Nanon's heart leap, "there was a little fair-haired gentleman, very plump and dainty, who didn't eat or drink, and who was afraid to resume his journey after dark. A young gentleman who was afraid," repeated Biscarros, with an extremely-cunning nod; "you understand, do you not?"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the duke, condescendingly, biting freely at the hook.

Nanon answered his laughter with something very like gnashing of the teeth.

"Go on!" said she; "it's a charming story! Of course the little gentleman was awaiting Monsieur de Canolles."

"No, no; he was waiting for a tall, moustachioed gentleman to sup with him, and was even somewhat uncivil to Monsieur de Canolles when he proposed that they should sup together. But that worthy gentleman was not discouraged by so small a matter. He's an enterprising young man, apparently, and 'faith, after the departure of the tall man, who turned to the right, he rode after the short one, who turned to the left."

With this Rabelaisian conclusion, Biscarros, observing the duke's expansive features, thought that he might indulge in an ascending scale of roars of laughter, of so stentorian quality that the windows rattled.

The duke, whose mind was entirely relieved from a great weight, would have embraced Biscarros if the least drop of noble blood had flowed in his veins. As for Nanon, with pallid cheeks, and a convulsive smile frozen upon her lips, she listened to every word that fell from the inn-keeper's lips, with that devouring faith which leads the jealous to drink freely to the dregs the poison which destroys their lives.

"What leads you to think," said she, "that your little gentleman is a woman, and that Monsieur de Canolles is in love with her, rather than that he is riding about the country because he is bored, or to gratify a whim?"

"What makes me think so?" replied Biscarros, determined to bring conviction home to the minds of his hearers. "Wait, and I will tell you."

"Yes, tell us, my good friend," said the duke. "Egad! you are an amusing fellow."

"Monseigneur is too kind," said Biscarros. "It was like this."

The duke became all ears, and Nanon listened with clenched fists.

"I suspected nothing, and had taken the little fair-haired cavalier for a man readily enough, when I met Monsieur de Canolles half-way upstairs, with a candle in his left hand, and in his right a small glove, which he was examining, and passionately smelling--"

"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the duke, whose spleen vanished with amazing rapidity, as soon as he ceased to have any apprehension on his own account.

"A glove!" exclaimed Nanon, trying to remember if she had not left such a pledge in the possession of her knight; "a glove like this?"

As she spoke, she handed the inn-keeper one of her own gloves.

"No," said Biscarros, "a man's glove."

"A man's glove? Monsieur de Canolles staring at a man's glove, and passionately smelling it? You are mad!"

"No; for it belonged to the little gentleman, the pretty little blond cavalier, who neither ate nor drank, and was afraid of the dark,--a tiny glove, in which madame could hardly put her hand, although madame certainly has a pretty hand--"

Nanon gave a sharp little cry, as if she had been struck by an invisible arrow.

"I trust," said she, with a mighty effort, "that you have all the information you desire, monseigneur; that you know all you wished to know."

With trembling lips, clenched teeth, and gleaming eyes, she pointed with outstretched finger to the door, while Biscarros, noticing these indications of wrath upon the young woman's face, was altogether non-plussed, and stood with mouth and eyes wide open.

"If the young gentleman's absence is such a calamity," he thought, "his return would be a blessed thing. I will flatter this worthy nobleman with a hopeful suggestion, that he may have a hearty appetite."

In pursuance of this determination, Biscarros assumed his most gracious expression, gracefully put his right leg forward, and remarked,--

"After all, though the gentleman has gone, he may return at any moment."

The duke smiled at this beginning.

"True," he said; "why should he not return? Perhaps, indeed, he has returned already. Go and ascertain, Monsieur Biscarros, and let me know."

"But the breakfast?" said Nanon, hastily; "I am dying of hunger."

"To be sure," said the duke; "Courtauvaux will go. Come here, Courtauvaux; go to Master Biscarros' inn, and see if Monsieur le Baron de Canolles has returned. If he is not there, ask questions, find out what you can, look for him in the neighborhood. I am anxious to breakfast with him. Go!"

Courtauvaux left the room, and Biscarros, noticing the embarrassed silence of the others, prepared to put forth a new expedient.

"Don't you see that madame is motioning you to retire?" said Francinette.

"One moment! one moment!" cried the duke; "deuce take me! but you're losing your head now, my dear Nanon. What about the menu, pray? I am like you; I am half famished. Here, Master Biscarros, put these six louis with the others: they are to pay for the diverting tale you have been telling us."

Thereupon he bade the historian give place to the cook, and we hasten to say that Master Biscarros shone no less brilliantly in the second rôle than the first.

Meanwhile Nanon had reflected and realized at a glance the situation in which she was placed if Master Biscarros' supposition were well-founded. In the first place, was it well-founded? and, after all, even if it were, was not Canolles excusable? For what a cruel thing for a gallant fellow like him was this broken appointment! How insulting the espionage of the Duc d'Épernon, and the necessity imposed upon him, Canolles, of looking on, so to speak, at his rival's triumph! Nanon was so deeply in love herself that, attributing this prank to a paroxysm of jealousy, she not only forgave Canolles, but pitied him, and congratulated herself, perhaps, on being loved so well as to have incited him to take this petty revenge upon her. But the evil must be cut off at its root, and the progress of this incipient passion must be checked at all hazards.

At that point, a terrifying thought passed through Nanon's mind, and well-nigh struck her dumb.

Suppose that this meeting between Canolles and the little gentleman was by appointment.

But no; she was mad to think of it, for the little fellow awaited the arrival of a man with moustaches, and was rude to Canolles; perhaps Canolles did not himself detect the stranger's sex until he happened upon the little glove.

No matter! Canolles must be thwarted.

Summoning all her energy, she returned to the duke, who had just dismissed Biscarros, laden with compliments and instructions.

"What a misfortune, monsieur," said she, "that that madcap's folly deprives him of an honor like that you were about to bestow upon him! If he had been here, his future was assured; his absence may ruin everything."

"But," said the duke, "if we find him--"

"No danger of that," rejoined Nanon; "if there's a woman in the case, he will not have returned."

"What would you have me do, my love? Youth is the age of pleasure; he is young, and is amusing himself."

"But," said Nanon, "I am more sensible than he, and it's my opinion that we should interfere a little with his unseasonable amusement."

"Ah! scolding sister!" cried the duke.

"He will take it ill of me at the moment, perhaps; but he will unquestionably thank me for it later."

"Very well; have you a plan? I ask nothing better than to adopt it if you have."

"I have one."

"Tell it me."

"Do you not wish to send him to the queen with urgent intelligence?"

"To be sure; but if he has not returned--"

"Send a messenger after him; and as he is on the road to Paris, it will be so much time gained."

"_Pardieu!_ you are right."

"Leave it to me, and Canolles shall have the order to-night or to-morrow morning. I will answer for it."

"Whom will you send?"

"Do you need Courtauvaux?"

"Not in the least."

"Give him to me, then, and I will send him with my instructions."

"Oh! what a head for a diplomatist! you have a future before you, Nanon."

"May I remain forever under so good a master! that is the height of my ambition," said Nanon, throwing her arm around the old duke's neck, whereat he trembled with delight.

"What a delightful joke to play upon our Celadon!" said she.

"It will be a charming story to tell, my love."

"Upon my word! I should like to go in chase of him myself, to see how he'll receive the messenger."

"Unhappily, or rather happily, that is out of the question, and you must needs remain with me."

"True; but let us lose no time. Write your order, duke, and place Courtauvaux at my disposal."

The duke took a pen and wrote upon a bit of paper these two words:--

"Bordeaux.--No,"

and signed his name.

He then enclosed this laconic despatch in an envelope, on which he wrote the following address:--

"_To her Majesty, Queen Anne of Austria, Regent of France._"

Nanon meanwhile wrote a few lines, which she placed with the other, after showing them to the duke:--

MY DEAR BARON,--The accompanying despatch is for her Majesty
the queen, as you see. On your life, carry it to her
instantly; the welfare of the kingdom is at stake!

Your loving sister,

NANON.

Nanon had hardly finished the letter, when they heard hurried footsteps at the foot of the stairs, and Courtauvaux ran up quickly and opened the door, with the expansive expression of a bearer of news which he knows to be awaited with impatience.

"Here is Monsieur de Canolles, whom I met within a hundred yards of the house," he said.

The duke uttered an exclamation of good-humored surprise. Nanon turned pale, and darted to the door, muttering,--

"It is written that I shall not escape the meeting."

At that moment a new personage appeared in the doorway, arrayed in a magnificent costume, holding his hat in his hand, and with a most gracious smile upon his lips.