"My dear Andrea," said I, "if you will love Genevi?ve, you will, and
there's an end of it. But if you would not have the Chevalier pack you
back to Paris and the anger of my Lord Cardinal, be circumspect, and at
least when M. de Canaples is by divide your homage equally betwixt the two.
'T were well if you dissembled even a slight preference for Yvonne--she
will not be misled by it, seeing how unmistakable at all other seasons must
be your wooing of Genevi?ve."
He was forced to avow the wisdom of my counsel, and to be guided by it.
Nevertheless, I rode back to my hostelry in no pleasant frame of mind. It
was more than likely that a short shrift and a length of hemp would be the
acknowledgment I should anon receive from Mazarin for my participation in
the miscarriage of his desires.
I felt that disaster was on the wing. Call it a premonition; call it what
you will. I know but this; that as I rode into the courtyard of the Lys de
France, at dusk, the first man my eyes alighted on was the Marquis C?sar de
St. Auban, and, in conversation with him, six of the most arrant-looking
ruffians that ever came out of Paris.
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