I had judged her rightly, and my tone of flippant recklessness won me her sympathy and aid. Quickly thrusting her head through the other window: "Drive on, Louis," she commanded. "Faster!" Then turning to me, "You may bring your legs into the coach if you choose, sir," she said.
"Your words, Madame, are the sweetest music I have heard for months," I answered drily, as I obeyed her. Then leaning out of the carriage again I waved my hat gallantly to the mob which--now realising the futility of further pursuit--had suddenly come to a halt.
"Au plaisir de vous revoir, Messieurs," I shouted. "Come to me one by one, and I'll keep the devil busy finding lodgings for you."
They answered me with a yell, and I sat down content, and laughed.
"You are not a coward, Monsieur," said the dark lady.
"I have been accounted many unsavoury things, Madame, but my bitterest enemies never dubbed me that."
"Why, then, did you run away?"
"Why? Ma foi! because in the excessive humility of my soul I recognised myself unfit to die."
She bit her lip and her tiny foot beat impatiently upon the floor.
"You are trifling with me, Monsieur. Where do you wish to alight?"
"Pray let that give you no concern; I can assure you that I am in no haste."
"You become impertinent, sir," she cried angrily. "Answer me, where are you going?"
"Where am I going? Oh, ah--to the Palais Royal."
Her eyes opened very wide at that, and wandered over me with a look that was passing eloquent. Indeed, I was a sorry spectacle for any woman's eyes--particularly a pretty one's. Splashed from head to foot with mud, my doublet saturated and my beaver dripping, with the feather hanging limp and broken, whilst there was a rent in my breeches that had been made by Canaples's sword, I take it that I had not the air of a courtier, and that when I said that I went to the Palais Royal she might have justly held me to be the adventurous lover of some kitchen wench. But unto the Palais Royal go others besides courtiers and lovers--spies of the Cardinal, for instance, and in her sudden coldness and the next question that fell from her beauteous lips I read that she had guessed me one of these.
"Why did the mob pursue you, Monsieur?"
There was in her voice and gesture when she asked a question the imperiousness of one accustomed to command replies. This pretty queenliness it was that drove me to answer--as I had done before--in a bantering strain.
"Why did the mob pursue me? Hum! Why does the mob pursue great men? Because it loves their company."