women--and against one woman in particular----” André failed to suppress an exclamation. Had this beautiful witch divined that secret too? “Her name,” she paused to bury her face in the cat’s fur, “is--Yvonne--Yvonne,” she repeated, “of the Spotless Ankles.” “Yvonne!” he laughed heartily. “Yes, Yvonne. Sometimes there is more in a peasant girl to tempt and ruin than in a Comtesse des Forges, or a marquise--” it was her turn to laugh. “Ah! the Vicomte is a gallant and reckless lover. He thinks as the _noblesse_ think, that women are necessary to him. But it is not so. It is he who is necessary to them.” “And your fee for the advice, mistress?” She flung the five gold pieces of Madame d’Étiolles into a drawer. “Madame has paid for both,” she said. “But if the Vicomte de Nérac will offer something of his own, I will accept--a kiss,” and she looked him daringly in the face. The hall of the Château de Beau Séjour swept in a vision before him. _Dieu Le Vengeur_ seemed to be written in a scroll of fire round the cat’s ruff. “I understand,” she added with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders, “though I am not a marquise or a comtesse.” “You shall have it,” he blurted out with husky petulance. She put her hand to her diamond cross--they looked at each other--the woman melted into a defiant reverence. “The horse of Monsieur le Vicomte,” she commanded quickly to the girl who had appeared as if by magic. “Good-day, sir. You can pay the fee to--Yvonne.” And here he was alone with the shifty-eyed _fille de chambre_, who plainly gave him an invitation to mistake her for Yvonne. “Confound you, what do you wait for?” André said irritably. “Fetch the horse at once if you don’t want to taste a rogue’s fare with your mistress in prison.” And as he rode through the woods it was little comfort to remember that he had won his wager with Henri, Comte de St. Benôit. CHAPTER VII THE KING’S HANDKERCHIEF IN December the Duchesse de Châteauroux, the _maîtresse en titre_ of the King of France, had died, some said of poison, some of a broken heart at her treatment at Metz when she had been driven by her enemies from th...“A week!” Madame threw up her noble head. “Not twenty-four hours.”
But André, who had heard the crystal’s story, had his good reasons. Already fertile schemes were fermenting in his brain; his ambition, too, was daily soaring upwards, and he dimly guessed that in this strange circling of Fortune’s wheel the opportunity for which he thirsted would at last come. And so like the rest of the gay world he went that night to the grand ball given by the municipality of Paris at the Hôtel-de-Ville in honour of the marriage of the Dauphin; for the King had promised to be present, and it was to be one of those rare occasions when the _noblesse_ had consented to rub 

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