But would it? Would it? Well! I did not quite know. She was a Spaniard, and the Spaniards had the reputation of being very firm in their affections when once they were set in a certain direction. And I thought, only thought—though, perhaps, I hoped too—that those affections were set more or less in my direction. And now, to-night, I was going to see.
I had brought back to Paris from England with me a servant: a rough, queer creature, with an enormous appetite and a desire for sleep which I had never seen equalled; yet one who had served my dear father for many years, and had followed him about over Europe in those pilgrimages which I once told you he had been in the habit of making, in the footsteps of our King, James III. At Rome this man had been, also in Spain, and in these places he had picked up a smattering of tongues other than his own, as well as having the French very well; while, as he had earlier ridden trooper in the regiment of Blues, and, still earlier, had been a sailor for a time, he was a brave and valiant fellow. A rough kind of spaniel thing he was, which would cling close to its master's heels, yet yap and snap and sniff at every one a-nigh that master until sure that such person boded no ill to him. Now, I went to wake him—for, as always, he slept when he had no work to do—from his slumbers in a cupboard on the landing.
"Get up, Giles" (for Giles Bates was his name, and a good honest English one, too, though it had no spot of Norman in it), I cried, stamping on the floor at the same time to wake him. "Get up at once."
"Is the house afire?" he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes all the time. "I would not be surprised if 'twere so in this silly land. Or is the breakfast ready? I am mortal hungry. Oh!" he exclaimed, seeing me, his master, "it is you, my lord. What is to do now, my lord?"
"I am going to supper at a lady's house, or, at least, I am going to a lady's house. Don't roll your eyes up like that, you fool! the lady will be my wife ere long, I hope. Meanwhile, I have enemies, rivals, and may be attacked, and I want your company."
In a minute he was up off his pallet and had seized his sword and was buckling it on to him, his gooseberry-looking eyes gleaming with delight; for Giles Bates loved a fight as well as any of our island breed, and was ever ready for one.
For myself, I needed no buckling on of my blade. I had, since I returned from the Hôtel d'Aragon, changed my clothes, putting off my fashionable suit of black, and assuming a plainer one in which I travelled. My Flamberg was also already on my thigh, wherefore I felt equal to meeting any of the Prince of Csaba's Spanish asesinos whom he might see fit to send out to attack me in the neighbourhood of my sweetheart's house. That they would be Spanish I felt sure, for more reasons than one; the first of many such reasons being that the Prince was surrounded by a train of Spaniards; and the second, that he would have had no time to procure Frenchmen, even if Frenchmen would have served him, which, since the French are not midnight cut-throats, whatever their other failings may be, I did not think very likely.
"I want your company."
A little later and we drew near to where the Paris mansion of the Carbajals stood in the Marais, it being by this time hard on two o'clock of the morning, and all the streets around very still beneath the light of the moon as she sailed above. The revellers and wassailers seemed to have gone to their beds, and we scarce passed any one as we approached nearer and nearer to the spot we were making for, and all was very calm except for the barking of a dog once and again. Yet, notwithstanding the peacefulness of the night and the desolation of the streets, I observed my mastiff keeping his eyes ever open warily, and glinting first one and then the other into dark corners and up alleys and ruelles.