But the Frenchman broke in before the ill effects of the Chancellor’s speech had time to turn the mind of the King’s guardian from the present project against the Earl of Douglas.

“But surely, gentlemen, it should not be difficult for two such honourable men to unite in destroying this curse of the commonweal—­and afterwards to settle any differences which may in the past have arisen between themselves.”

“Good,” said the Chancellor, “you speak well.  But how are we to bring the Earl within our danger?  Already I have sent him offers of alliance, and so, I doubt not, hath my honourable friend the tutor of the King.  You know well what answer the proud chief of Douglas returned.”

The lips of Sir Alexander Livingston moved.  He seemed to be taking some bitter and nauseous drug of the apothecary.

“Yes, Sir Alexander, I see you have not forgot.  The words,’If dog eat dog, what should the lion care?’ made us every caitiff’s scoff throughout broad Scotland.”

“For that he shall yet suffer, if God give me speed,” said the tutor, for the answer had been repeated to the Queen, who, being English, laughed at the wit of the reply.

“I would that my boy should grow up such another as that Earl Douglas,” she had said.

The tutor stroked his beard faster than ever, and there was in his eyes the bitter look of a handsome man whose vanity is wounded in its weakest place.

“But, after all, who is to cage the lion?” said the Chancellor, pertinently.

The marshal of France raised his hand from the table as if commanding silence.  His suave and courtier-like demeanour had changed into something more natural to the man.  There came the gaunt forward thrust of a wolf on the trail into the set of his head.  His long teeth gleamed, and his eyelids closed down upon his eyes till these became mere twinkling points.

“I have that at hand which hath already tamed the lion,” he said, “and is able to lead him into the cage with cords of silk.”

He rose from the table, and, going to a curtain that concealed the narrow door of an antechamber, he drew it aside, and there came forth, clothed in a garment of gold and green, close-fitting and fine, clasped about the waist with a twining belt of jewelled snakes, the Lady Sybilla.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE LION TAMER

On this summer afternoon the girl’s beauty seemed more wondrous and magical than ever.  Her eyes were purple-black, like the berries of the deadly nightshade seen in the twilight.  Her face was pale, and the scarlet of her lips lay like twin geranium petals on new-fallen snow.

Gilles de Retz followed her with a certain grim and ghastly pride, as he marked the sensation caused by her entrance.

“This,” he said, “is my lion tamer!”

But the girl never looked at him, nor in any way responded to his glances.