Yet while our poet was playing these two parts, he managed his affairs so dexterously that he seemed to the general eye to be playing but one part, and that the part of the dazzlingly magnificent courtier. If his mornings were given to consultation with the king and the king's chief soldiers, if his forenoons were devoted to the confirming of edicts and the promulgations of laws all tending to alleviate the condition and lighten the load of the people of Paris, his afternoons and evenings and shining summer nights were entirely surrendered to the glittering pleasures and pastimes of a man of ease. We hear of entertainment after entertainment, banquet and ball and masquerade, pageant and play and pastime, each one of which seemed to be the last word of wealthy ingenuity until it was eclipsed by its still more splendid successor. And it was this part of which the Count of Montcorbier chose to make the most with a very special purpose. He caused, it seems, many emissaries of his to quit Paris and find shelter within the Duke of Burgundy's lines, pretending to be deserters from the waning cause of the king, each of whom had the same tale to tell to the credulous ears of the enemy; namely, that the king's new favourite was a wastrel and a fool, who had no better purpose in life than the rhyming of madrigals, the tuning of lutes, the draining of flagons, and the pressing of ladies' fingers in the dance. All of which produced, we are assured, upon the mind of the Duke of Burgundy the very effect desired by Villon and led to results which luckily we are enabled to know more of, as Dom Gregory's manuscript happily resumes continuity on the seventh day of Master François' week of wonder. We further learn--for Dom Gregory, though a churchman, seems to have a kindly spot in his heart for the ways of lovers--that during those seven days, the friendship of Villon and Katherine grew apace and that the whole court watched with interest, and Monsieur Noel le Jolys with an ever-increasing fury, the growth of a great and beautiful passion. But it seems that Master Villon, whether from fear to risk too soon or from a desire to leave the loveliest moment of his reign to the last, made no attempt directly to declare himself or directly to learn how high he stood in the Lady Katherine's heart until the very day which was the last day upon which it was possible for him to assure his own salvation. IF I WERE TO DIE TO-MORROW CHAPTER IX