Yet she shuddered.
He saw it. His face, too, was paper, and François laughed horribly.
"If I still love you! Go, ask of Denise, of Jacqueline, or of Pierrette, of Marion the Statue, of Jehanne of Brittany, of Blanche Slippermaker, of Fat Peg,--ask of any trollop in all Paris how François Villon loves. You thought me faithful! You thought that I especially preferred you to any other bed-fellow! Eh, I perceive that the credo of the Rue Saint Jacques is somewhat narrow-minded. For my part I find one woman much the same as another." And his voice shook, for he saw how pretty she was, saw how she suffered. But he managed a laugh.
"I do not believe you," Catherine said, in muffled tones. "François! You loved me, François. Ah, boy, boy!" she cried, with a pitiable wail; "come back to me, boy that I loved!"
It was a difficult business. But he grinned in her face.
"He is dead. Let François de Montcorbier rest in his grave. Your voice is very sweet, Catherine, and--and he could refuse you nothing, could he, lass? Ah, God, God, God!" he cried, in his agony; "why can you not believe me? I tell you Necessity pounds us in her mortar to what shape she will. I tell you that Montcorbier loved you, but François Villon prefers Fat Peg. An ill cat seeks an ill rat." And with this, tranquillity fell upon his soul, for he knew that he had won.
Her face told him that. Loathing was what he saw there.
"I am sorry," Catherine said, dully. "I am sorry. Oh, for high God's sake! go, go! Do you want money? I will give you anything if you will only go. Oh, beast! Oh, swine, swine, swine!"
He turned and went, staggering like a drunken person.
Once in the garden he fell prone upon his face in the wet grass. About him the mingled odor of roses and mignonette was sweet and heavy; the fountain plashed interminably in the night, and above him the chestnuts and acacias rustled and lisped as they had done seven years ago. Only he was changed.
"O Mother of God," the thief prayed, "grant that Noël may be kind to her! Mother of God, grant that she may be happy! Mother of God, grant that I may not live long!"
And straightway he perceived that triple invocation could be, rather neatly, worked out in ballade form. Yes, with a separate prayer to each verse. So, dismissing for the while his misery, he fell to considering, with undried cheeks, what rhymes he needed.