came waddling out at the same moment, Gil carrying a chair behind
her. And we--well we slunk away and sat on the other side of the
terrace, whence we could still glower at the offender.

Yet who were we to glower at him? To this day I shake at the
thought of him. It was not so much his height and bulk, though
he was so big that the clipped pointed fashion of his beard a
fashion then new at court--seemed on him incongruous and
effeminate; nor so much the sinister glance of his grey eyes--he
had a slight cast in them; nor the grim suavity of his manner,
and the harsh threatening voice that permitted of no disguise.
It was the sum of these things, the great brutal presence of the
man--that was overpowering--that made the great falter and the
poor crouch. And then his reputation! Though we knew little of
the world's wickedness, all we did know had come to us linked
with his name. We had heard of him as a duellist, as a bully, an
employer of bravos. At Jarnac he had been the last to turn from
the shambles. Men called him cruel and vengeful even for those
days--gone by now, thank God!--and whispered his name when they
spoke of assassinations; saying commonly of him that he would not
blench before a Guise, nor blush before the Virgin.

Such was our visitor and neighbour, Raoul de Mar, Vidame de
Bezers. As he sat on the terrace, now eyeing us askance, and now
paying Catherine a compliment, I likened him to a great cat
before which a butterfly has all unwittingly flirted her
prettiness. Poor Catherine! No doubt she had her own reasons
for uneasiness; more reasons I fancy than I then guessed. For
she seemed to have lost her voice. She stammered and made but
poor replies; and Madame Claude being deaf and stupid, and we