the world belongs to it.  I don’t condemn the Reformers; it is not my business to do so; but the court is Catholic, the two queens are Catholic, the Parliament is Catholic; we must supply them with furs, and therefore we must be Catholic ourselves.  You shall not go out from here, Christophe; if you do, I will send you to your godfather, President de Thou, who will keep you night and day blackening paper, instead of blackening your soul in company with those damned Genevese.”

“Father,” said Christophe, leaning upon the back of the old man’s chair, “send me to Blois to carry that surcoat to Queen Mary and get our money from the queen-mother.  If you do not, I am lost; and you care for your son.”

“Lost?” repeated the old man, without showing the least surprise.  “If you stay here you can’t be lost; I shall have my eye on you all the time.”

“They will kill me here.”

“Why?”

“The most powerful among the Huguenots have cast their eyes on me to serve them in a certain matter; if I fail to do what I have just promised to do, they will kill me in open day, here in the street, as they killed Minard.  But if you send me to court on your affairs, perhaps I can justify myself equally well to both sides.  Either I shall succeed without having run any danger at all, and shall then win a fine position in the party; or, if the danger turns out very great, I shall be there simply on your business.”

The father rose as if his chair was of red-hot iron.

“Wife,” he said, “leave us; and watch that we are left quite alone, Christophe and I.”

When Mademoiselle Lecamus had left them the furrier took his son by a button and led him to the corner of the room which made the angle of the bridge.

“Christophe,” he said, whispering in his ear as he had done when he mentioned the name of the Prince of Conde, “be a Huguenot, if you have that vice; but be so cautiously, in the depths of your soul, and not in a way to be pointed at as a heretic throughout the quarter.  What you have just confessed to me shows that the leaders have confidence in you.  What are you going to do for them at court?”

“I cannot tell you that,” replied Christophe; “for I do not know myself.”

“Hum! hum!” muttered the old man, looking at his son, “the scamp means to hoodwink his father; he’ll go far.  You are not going to court,” he went on in a low tone, “to carry remittances to Messieurs de Guise or to the little king our master, or to the little Queen Marie.  All those hearts are Catholic; but I would take my oath the Italian woman has some spite against the Scotch girl and against the Lorrains.  I know her.  She has a desperate desire to put her hand into the dough.  The late king was so afraid of her that he did as the jewellers do, he cut diamond by diamond, he pitted one woman against another.  That caused Queen Catherine’s hatred to the poor Duchesse de Valentinois, from whom she took the