"Yes, I know, I know," he said, wincing at his own words as if they pierced him. "There was opportunity enough with that De Merri. I was blind then. And with this new puppy! Women and lovers have the ingenuity of devils in devising opportunities. And they both admit their interview in the garden. But that he could have his way so soon--is that entirely probable?"
He looked at the Captain almost beseechingly, as if for a spark of hope.
The Captain spoke with the calm certainty of wisdom gained through a world of experience:
"Young blood is quickly stirred. Young lips are quickly drawn to one another. Young arms are quick to reach out, and young bodies quick to yield to them."
The Count uttered a cry of pain and wrath, his eyes fixed as though upon the very scene the Captain imagined.
"The wretches!" said the tortured Count, staggering to his feet. "And I am the Count de Lavardin!"
[Illustration: "'THE WRETCHES!' SAID THE TORTURED COUNT, STAGGERING TO HIS FEET."]
"The greater nobleman you, the greater conquest for a young nobody to boast of. It is a fine thought for adventurous youth.--'A great lord, and a rich, but it is I, an unknown stripling, who really have possessed what he thinks his dearest treasure.'"
The Count gave a kind of agonized moan, and went lurching across the hall, spilling some wine from his glass. "And a man of my years, too!" he said, with an accent of self-pity.
"The older the husband, the merrier the laugh at his expense," said the Captain.
The Count ground his teeth, and muttered to himself.
"It is always their boasting that betrays them," went on the Count. "When I was young, they used to tell of a famous love affair between the Bussy d'Amboise of that day and the Countess de Montsoreau, wife of the Grand-huntsman. It came out through Bussy's writing to the King's brother that he had stolen the hind of the Grand-huntsman. That is how these young cocks always speak of their conquests.
"Ah, I remember that. He did the right thing, that Montsoreau! He forced his false wife to make an appointment with Bussy, and when Bussy came, it was a dozen armed men who kept the appointment, and the gay lover died hanging from a window. Yes, that Montsoreau!--but he should have killed the woman too! The perfidious creatures! Mon dieu!--when I married her--when she took the vows--she was the picture of fidelity--I could have staked my soul that she was true; that from duty alone she was mine always, only mine!"