Saint Martins Summer | Page 9

concerning what he had in mind, but he found his secretary singularly
dull and unimaginative. So that, perforce, he must fall back upon
himself. He sat glum and thoughtful, his mind in unproductive travail,
until the captain was announced.
Still without any definite plan, he blundered headlong, nevertheless,
into the necessary first step towards the fulfilment of his purpose.
"Captain," said he, looking mighty grave, "I have cause to believe that
all is not as it should be in the hills in the district of Montelimar."
"Is there trouble, monsieur?" inquired the captain, startled.
"Maybe there is, maybe there is not," returned the Seneschal
mysteriously. "You shall have your full orders in the morning.
Meanwhile, make ready to repair to the neighbourhood of Montelimar
to-morrow with a couple of hundred men."
"A couple of hundred, monsieur!" exclaimed d'Aubran. "But that will
be to empty Grenoble of soldiers."

"What of it? We are not likely to require them here. Let your orders for
preparation go round tonight, so that your knaves may be ready to set
out betimes to-morrow. If you will be so good as to wait upon me early
you shall have your instructions."
Mystified, Monsieur d'Aubran departed on his errand, and my Lord
Seneschal went down to supper well pleased with the cunning device
by which he was to leave Grenoble without a garrison. It was an astute
way of escape from the awkward situation into which his attachment to
the interests of the dowager of Condillac was likely to place him.
But when the morning came he was less pleased with the idea, chiefly
because he had been unable to invent any details that should lend it the
necessary colour, and d'Aubran - worse luck - was an intelligent officer
who might evince a pardonable but embarrassing curiosity. A leader of
soldiers has a right to know something at least of the enterprise upon
which he leads them. By morning, too, Tressan found that the
intervening space of the night, since he had seen Madame de Condillac,
had cooled his ardour very considerably.
He had reached the incipient stages of regret of his rash promise.
When Captain d'Aubran was announced to him, he bade them ask him
to come again in an hour's time. From mere regrets he was passing now,
through dismay, into utter repentance of his promise. He sat in his
study, at his littered writing-table, his head in his hands, a confusion of
thoughts, a wild, frenzied striving after invention in his brain.
Thus Anselme found him when he thrust aside the portiere to announce
that a Monsieur de Garnache, from Paris, was below, demanding to see
the Lord Seneschal at once upon an affair of State.
Tressan's flesh trembled and his heart fainted. Then, suddenly,
desperately, he took his courage in both hands. He remembered who he
was and what he was the King's Lord Seneschal of the Province of
Dauphiny. Throughout that province, from the Rhone to the Alps, his
word was law, his name a terror to evildoers - and to some others
besides. Was he to blench and tremble at the mention of the name of a

Court lackey out of Paris, who brought him a message from the
Queen-Regent? Body of God! not he.
He heaved himself to his feet, warmed and heartened by the thought;
his eye sparkled, and there was a deeper flush than usual upon his
cheek.
"Admit this Monsieur de Garnache," said he with a fine loftiness, and
in his heart he pondered what he would say and how he should say it;
how he should stand, how move, and how look. His roving eye caught
sight of his secretary. He remembered something - the cherished pose
of being a man plunged fathoms-deep in business. Sharply he uttered
his secretary's name.
Babylas raised his pale face; he knew what was coming; it had come so
many times before. But there was no vestige of a smile on his drooping
lips, no gleam of amusement in his patient eye. He thrust aside the
papers on which he was at work, and drew towards him a fresh sheet on
which to pen the letter which, he knew by experience, Tressan was
about to indite to the Queen-mother. For these purposes Her Majesty
was Tressan's only correspondent.
Then the door opened, the portiere was swept aside, and Anselme
announced "Monsieur de Garnache."
Tressan turned as the newcomer stepped briskly into the room, and
bowed, hat in hand, its long crimson feather sweeping the ground, then
straightened himself and permitted the Seneschal to take his measure.
Tressan beheld a man of a good height, broad to the waist and spare
thence to the ground, who at first glance appeared to be mainly clad in
leather. A buff jerkin fitted his body;