He agreed with me, whilst Andrea expressed a wish to try the turf. Foils were brought, and we whiled away best part of an half-hour. In the end, the Chevalier, who had watched my play intently, offered to try a bout with me. And so amazed was he with the result, that he had not done talking of it when I left Canaples a few hours later--a homage this that earned me some more than ordinarily unfriendly glances from Yvonne. No doubt since the accomplishment was mine it became in her eyes characteristic of a bully and a ruffler.
During the week that followed I visited the château with regularity, and with equal regularity did Andrea receive his fencing lessons. The object of his presence at Canaples, however, was being frustrated more and more each day, so far as the Cardinal and the Chevalier were concerned.
He raved to me of Geneviève, the one perfect woman in all the world and brought into it by a kind Providence for his own particular delectation. In truth, love is like a rabid dog--whom it bites it renders mad; so open grew his wooing, and so ardent, that one evening I thought well to take him aside and caution him.
"My dear Andrea," said I, "if you will love Geneviève, you will, and there's an end of it. But if you would not have the Chevalier pack you back to Paris and the anger of my Lord Cardinal, be circumspect, and at least when M. de Canaples is by divide your homage equally betwixt the two. 'T were well if you dissembled even a slight preference for Yvonne--she will not be misled by it, seeing how unmistakable at all other seasons must be your wooing of Geneviève."
He was forced to avow the wisdom of my counsel, and to be guided by it.
Nevertheless, I rode back to my hostelry in no pleasant frame of mind. It was more than likely that a short shrift and a length of hemp would be the acknowledgment I should anon receive from Mazarin for my participation in the miscarriage of his desires.
I felt that disaster was on the wing. Call it a premonition; call it what you will. I know but this; that as I rode into the courtyard of the Lys de France, at dusk, the first man my eyes alighted on was the Marquis César de St. Auban, and, in conversation with him, six of the most arrant-looking ruffians that ever came out of Paris.