She asked the question in a carelessly meditative way, and quite evidently without any reference to the fact that a certain John d'Albret (once called in jest the Abbé John) was the youngest full captain in that enthusiastic, though ill-paid array. But the Professor did not hear her question. His mind was set on great matters of policy, while Claire wondered whether the Abbé John looked handsome in his accoutrements of captain. Then she thought of the enemy trying to kill him, and it seemed bitterly wicked. That John d'Albret was at the same time earnestly endeavouring to kill as many as possible of the enemy did not seem to matter nearly so much. "Yes," said the Professor, "Henry of Valois has nothing else for it. The Leaguers are worse than ever, buzzing like a cloud of hornets about his head. They hold Paris and half the cities of France. He must go to the King of Navarre, and that humbly withal!" "It will be well for him then," said Claire, "if our Jean-aux-Choux has no more visions, with 'Remember Saint Bartholomew' for an over-word!" "Ah," said the Professor, "make no mistake. A man may be brave and politic as well. 'I am excellent at taking advice, when it is to my own liking,' said the Bearnais, and he will teach Master Jean to see visions also to his liking!" At which Claire laughed merrily. "I am with him there!" she cried; "so as you hope for influence with me, good sir, advise me in the line of my desires. But, ah! yonder is your mother." And clapping her hands, she picked up her skirts and ran as hard as she could up the path towards a trellised white house with a wide balcony, over which the vines clambered in summer. It was the house of La Masane, which looks down upon Collioure. Madame Amélie, or, more properly, the Señora, was a little, quick-moving, crisp-talking woman, with an eye that snapped, and a wealth of speech which left her son, the Professor of Eloquence, an infinite distance behind. She had with her in the house two other sons, the elder of whom was Alcalde of the little town of Collioure, and therefore intimately linked with the great house of the Llorients, whose turreted castle stood up grimly midway between St. Elne and La Masane. The Alcalde of Collioure was a staid man of grave aspect, a grinder of much corn during his hours of work, the master of six windmills which creaked and groaned on the windy slopes above the sea-village. In his broad hat-brim and in the folds of his attire there was always more or less of the faint grey-white dust which hall-marks the maker of the bread of men.