"I do, monsieur," answered the other with cool insolence, leaning back in his chair. The light fell directly on his face and proved to me what I had guessed at his first word. The duke's night visitor was Lucas. "Yes," he repeated indifferently, "it has gone badly. In fact, your game is up." Mayenne jumped to his feet, bringing his fist down on the table. "You tell me this?" Lucas regarded him with an easy smile. "Unfortunately, monsieur, I do." [Illustration: MLLE. De MONTLUC AND FÉLIX BROUX IN THE ORATORY] Mayenne turned on him, cursing. Lucas with the quickness of a cat sprang a yard aside, dagger unsheathed. "Put up that knife!" shouted Mayenne. "When you put up yours, monsieur." "I have drawn none!" "In your sleeve, monsieur." "Liar!" cried Mayenne. I know not who was lying, for I could not tell whether the blade that flashed now in the duke's hand came from his sleeve or from his belt. But if he had not drawn before he had drawn now and rushed at Lucas. He dodged and they circled round each other, wary as two matched cocks. Lucas was strictly on the defensive; Mayenne, the less agile by reason of his weight, could make no chance to strike. He drew off presently. "I'll have your neck wrung for this," he panted. "For what, monsieur?" asked Lucas, imperturbably. "For defending myself?" Mayenne let the charge go by default. "For coming to me with the tale of your failures. Nom de dieu, do I employ you to fail?" "We are none of us gods, monsieur. You yourself lost Ivry." Mayenne backed over to his chair and seated himself, laying his knife on the table in front of him. His face smoothed out to good humour--no mean tribute to his power of self-control. For the written words can convey no notion of the maddening insolence of Lucas's bearing--an insolence so studied that it almost seemed unconscious and was thereby well-nigh impossible to silence. "Sit down," bade the duke, "and tell me." Lucas, standing at the foot of the table, observed: "They turned you out of your bed, monsieur, to see me. It was unnecessary severity. My tale will keep till morning." "By Heaven, it shall not!" Mayenne shouted. "Beware how much further you dare anger me, you Satan's cub!" He was fingering the dagger again as if he longed to plunge it into Lucas's gullet, and I rather marvelled that he did not, or summon his guard to do it. For I could well understand how infuriating was Lucas. He carried himself with an air of easy equality insufferable to the first noble in the land. Mayenne's chosen rôle was the unmoved, the inscrutable, but Lucas beat him at his own game and drove him out into the open of passion and violence. It was a miracle to me that the man lived--unless, indeed, he were a prince in disguise. "Satan's cub!" Lucas repeated, laughing. "Our late king had called me that, pardieu! But I knew not you acknowledged Satan in the family."