“Is your call there, sir?” Stephen Gore glanced this way and that, and then laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Yes. Join with me, Jack; there are nobler prizes to be won here than you will ever take at sea.” They entered the Mazarin’s house through the little garden door, behind which some one seemed to have been waiting, for it was opened directly my lord had given five sharp knocks. The door closed behind them, and in the dim light John Gore saw the janitor was a woman. My lord walked straight ahead toward a back stairway as though he knew the intimate secrets of the house. John Gore was following him, when he felt the woman touch his arm. “Of your curtesy, sir, the lock has caught; will you turn it for me?” She spoke with a slightly foreign accent, drawing out every syllable with quaint directness. “Have you the key?” “Here it is, sir. Fie, now, I have dropped it; how very clumsy!” She began to draw her skirts this way and that in the narrow passage, peering for the thing in the dark, and even sweeping the floor with her hands. John Gore bent down to help her. And in the quest the woman’s hair brushed up against his cheek. She gave a sudden, thrilling little laugh, and took John Gore softly by the ear. “So you have come to join us, Signor Giovanni? That is very sweet of you. We need brave men.” To be held by the ear by a waiting-woman surprised the sea-captain for the moment. He took a firm but meaning hold upon the lady’s wrist. But with the other hand she put back the hood of the cloak she wore. “Ah, how good! I have played a trick upon you both. Have you never been held by the ear, Sir John, by some pretty little waiting-maid? Now do not pretend, Sir John; I shall be able to tell a different tale.” She seemed to grow taller suddenly, and to radiate splendor even in the dusk. Her voice changed also from a mincing treble to a full contralto that seemed made for song. John Gore knew that it was Hortense. “Madam,” he said, “I beg your pardon.” She laughed with mischievous charm, and drew her hand away slowly so that it brushed his cheek. “How simple of you, Sir John. And yet you can handle a sword so well. Shall we follow my lord?” “And the key?” he asked, with a glance at the floor. “Is in the lock. And the lock is turned. So you see!” She dropped the cloak that she was wearing, and as they ascended into the light he could see the splendor of her dress gleam up gradually, the color of her hair, and the compelling beauty of her face. Her eyes seemed full of sparkles of light; her lips red, soft, and mobile, as though on the brink of a smile. She paused at the head of the stairway, and stretched out an arm across the passage that led toward a room whence light and the sound of voices came. John Gore paused also, and she stood and looked into his eyes with an earnestness that made him color.