Though my knowledge of Plessis could be measured by days, my ears had been open as well as my eyes, and so the snap of the fingers that rounded off the sentence was more informatory than words. It meant, as far as Monseigneur was concerned, a friend's deep sorrow, a crown minister's despair, a courtier's ruin; bereavement instant and irremediable to heart, brain, and ambition; it meant that the present fortunes and future prospects of the living Commines would certainly be buried with the dead King, and perhaps also the glory and greatness of France. Nor do I think the certainty of the one fretted him as sorely as the perhaps of the others. For eleven years Philip de Commines had been the greatest man in the kingdom, serving Louis, France, and himself, and loving all three. Let the grave close over his master, and at the groan of the sepulchral stone rasping to its socket Love and Service perished. But I think that with him, as with every truly great man, his life's work was dearer than himself, and his heart, as he leaned against the little diamond window panes looking out into the narrow court, was bitter for the loss to France rather than at the crumbling of his own fortunes. "At any cost," he said, repeating the words over and over, "at any cost, at any--any cost." "Even of a child's murder?" "What?" he answered looking back across his shoulder, "are you still harping on that blunder? Oh! you Flemish calves! with but one idea in your head!" "And is Commines not also in Flanders?" He laughed, and quitting the window came towards me. "True, friend Gaspard, and a fair hit; but there are great ideas as well as small ones, and it would be a mercy if you and that Martin of yours could think of more than one thing at a time." "Martin?" said I, in despair at this fresh blow. "My own folly you have made clear, but what has Martin done?" Monsieur de Commines shook his head gravely, but it was a relief to see a twinkle of humour shining through the gravity in his eyes. "Martin has broken that high law of courts which says, Thou shalt run no risks to thyself for the sake of another! Love and faithfulness are dead in Plessis, and who is Martin to dare pretend they are alive? Twice every day he has come out from Tours to glower at the walls that hold his Master Gaspard, and it is not safe for a man to do that for a week at a stretch. Tristan has a keen nose and scented treason, love and faithfulness being perfumes strange to his nostrils, and had I not said No! haling Martin into Plessis almost by the neck, the misguided fool would have tapped his heels against that wall in the Rue Trois Pucelles before this." "What, Monseigneur! You had this thought for us even when you were scolding me? How can I thank you?" "Chut, chut," he answered, taking my hand in his, and holding it fast. "You gave the reason yourself a minute back; is not Commines also in Flanders?"