The servants had led away the horse, and seated at a window were the three fine-looking gentlemen. I watched them for a few minutes, not knowing what to do. I could not hear the sound of their voices, although the window was open, so I came nearer. The shortest of the three, who had been addressed as "Monsieur le Marquis," was talking, and gesticulating with his jewelled hand.
"Yes, yes. We will see the lilies again, my friends," he said in French. "Give this usurper time enough and the rope, and he will hang himself--a trite but true saying, my friends."
All at once one of them looked out of the window and saw me standing close to. I felt as if I had to do something to account for my presence, and an idea suggested to me by my meeting a singing beggar-woman on the streets in the morning was put into immediate practice; why, except for the connection of thought, I should have chosen the song I did I know not, but it was a fortunate circumstance. I struck out into a little chansonnette, something in the nature of a serenade, that I had heard my uncle trill in his high-pitched voice--a song that may have been a favorite with the gallants of King Louis's court.
I did not look in at the window as I sang, but cast my eyes upward in apparent oblivion to my surroundings. As I began the third stanza (something about roses and hearts, I remember) I was interrupted by approaching foot-steps.
[Illustration: A COMMANDING VOICE EXCLAIMED FROM THE WINDOW, "BRING THAT LAD IN HERE, SOME ONE."]
My singing had attracted the attention of several people in the court-yard, and a hostler was hurrying up with the evident intention of sending me to the rightabout. But if that was what he meant to do, he had to give it over, for a commanding voice in English, without the trace of an accent, exclaimed from the window,
Before I knew it, I was following one of the servants through a passageway, and was ushered into the presence of the three men seated at the table.
"Where could he have learned that song?" one of them was saying. The short man was humming the air.
"Who are you and what is your name?" questioned the large gentleman with the powdered hair, who evidently was in authority, speaking in French.