Bardelys the Magnificent | Page 8

Then "Will three months suffice you?" he
asked.
"If it is not done in three months, I will pay," said I.
And then Chatellerault did what after all was, I suppose, the only thing

that a gentleman might do under the circumstances. He rose to his feet,
and, bidding the company charge their glasses, he gave them a parting
toast.
"Messieurs, drink with me to Monsieur le Marquis de Bardelys's safe
journey into Languedoc, and to the prospering of his undertaking."
In answer, a great shout went up from throats that suspense had lately
held in leash. Men leapt on to their chairs, and, holding their glasses on
high, they acclaimed me as thunderously as though I had been the hero
of some noble exploit, instead of the main figure in a somewhat
questionable wager.
"Bardelys!" was the shout with which the house reechoed. "Bardelys!
Bardelys the Magnificent! Vive Bardelys!"
CHAPTER II
THE KING'S WISHES
It was daybreak ere the last of them had left me, for a dozen or so had
lingered to play lansquenet after the others had departed. With those
that remained my wager had soon faded into insignificance, as their
minds became engrossed in the fluctuations of their own fortunes.
I did not play myself; I was not in the mood, and for one night, at least,
of sufficient weight already I thought the game upon which I was
launched.
I was out on the balcony as the first lines of dawn were scoring the east,
and in a moody, thoughtful condition I had riveted my eyes upon the
palace of the Luxembourg, which loomed a black pile against the
lightening sky, when Mironsac came out to join me. A gentle, lovable
lad was Mironsac, not twenty years of age, and with the face and
manners of a woman. That he was attached to me I knew.
"Monsieur le Marquis," said he softly, "I am desolated at this wager
into which they have forced you."

"Forced me?" I echoed. "No, no; they did not force me. And yet," I
reflected, with a sigh, "perhaps they did."
"I have been thinking, monsieur, that if the King were to hear of it the
evil might be mended."
"But the King must not hear of it, Armand," I answered quickly. "Even
if he did, matters would be no better - much worse, possibly."
"But, monsieur, this thing done in the heat of wine--"
"Is none the less done, Armand," I concluded. "And I for one do not
wish it undone."
"But have you no thought for the lady?" he cried.
I laughed at him. "Were I still eighteen, boy, the thought might trouble
me. Had I my illusions, I might imagine that my wife must be some
woman of whom I should be enamoured. As it is, I have grown to the
age of twenty-eight unwed. Marriage becomes desirable. I must think
of an heir to all the wealth of Bardelys. And so I go to Languedoc. If
the lady be but half the saint that fool Chatellerault has painted her, so
much the better for my children; if not, so much the worse. There is the
dawn, Mironsac, and it is time we were abed. Let us drive these plaguy
gamesters home."
When the last of them had staggered down my steps, and I had bidden a
drowsy lacquey extinguish the candles, I called Ganymede to light me
to bed and aid me to undress. His true name was Rodenard; but my
friend La Fosse, of mythological fancy, had named him Ganymede,
after the cup-bearer of the gods, and the name had clung to him. He
was a man of some forty years of age, born into my father's service, and
since become my intendant, factotum, majordomo, and generalissimo
of my regiment of servants and my establishments both in Paris and at
Bardelys.
We had been to the wars together ere I had cut my wisdom teeth, and
thus had he come to love me. There was nothing this invaluable servant

could not do. At baiting or shoeing a horse, at healing a wound, at
roasting a capon, or at mending a doublet, he was alike a master,
besides possessing a score of other accomplishments that do not now
occur to me, which in his campaigning he had acquired. Of late the
easy life in Paris had made him incline to corpulency, and his face was
of a pale, unhealthy fullness.
To-night, as he assisted me to undress, it wore an expression of
supreme woe.
"Monseigneur is going into Languedoc?" he inquired sorrowfully. He
always called me his "seigneur," as did the other of my servants born at
Bardelys.
"Knave, you have been listening," said I.
"But, monseigneur," he explained, "when Monsieur le Comte de
Chatellerault laid his wager--"
"And have