“By the Lord!” Charles exclaimed, a ring of wonder mingled with horror in his tone, “if they knew what was in our minds they’d mark us more!  Yet, see Nancay there beside the door?  He is unmoved.  He looks to-day as he looked yesterday.  Yet he has charge of the work in the palace—­”

For the first time Tavannes allowed a movement of surprise to escape him.

“In the palace?” he muttered.  “Is it to be done here, too, sire?”

“Would you let some escape, to return by-and-by and cut our throats?” the King retorted, with a strange spirt of fury; an incapacity to maintain the same attitude of mind for two minutes together was the most fatal weakness of his ill-balanced nature.  “No.  All!  All!” he repeated with vehemence.  “Didn’t Noah people the earth with eight?  But I’ll not leave eight!  My cousins, for they are blood-royal, shall live if they will recant.  And my old nurse, whether or no.  And Pare, for no one else understands my complexion.  And—­”

“And Rochefoucauld, doubtless, sire?”

The King, whose eye had sought his favourite companion, withdrew it.  He darted a glance at Tavannes.

“Foucauld?  Who said so?” he muttered jealously.  “Not I!  But we shall see.  We shall see!  And do you see that you spare no one, M. le Comte, without an order.  That is your business.”

“I understand, sire,” Tavannes answered coolly.  And after a moment’s silence, seeing that the King had done with him, he bowed low and withdrew; watched by the circle, as all about a King were watched in the days when a King’s breath meant life or death, and his smile made the fortunes of men.  As he passed Rochefoucauld, the latter looked up and nodded.

“What keeps brother Charles?” he muttered.  “He’s madder than ever to-night.  Is it a masque or a murder he is planning?”

“The vapours,” Tavannes answered, with a sneer.  “Old tales his old nurse has stuffed him withal.  He’ll come by-and-by, and ’twill be well if you can divert him.”

“I will, if he come,” Rochefoucauld answered, shuffling the cards.  “If not ’tis Chicot’s business, and he should attend to it.  I’m tired, and shall to bed.”

“He will come,” Tavannes answered, and moved, as if to go on.  Then he paused for a last word.  “He will come,” he muttered, stooping and speaking under his breath, his eyes on the other’s face.  “But play him lightly.  He is in an ugly mood.  Please him, if you can, and it may serve.”

The eyes of the two met an instant, and those of Foucauld—­so the King called his Huguenot favourite—­betrayed some surprise; for Count Hannibal and he were not intimate.  But seeing that the other was in earnest, he raised his brows in acknowledgment.  Tavannes nodded carelessly in return, looked an instant at the cards on the table, and passed on, pushed his way through the circle, and reached the door.  He was lifting the curtain to go out, when Nancay, the Captain of the Guard, plucked his sleeve.