But the two were ill-matched. The Vidame could have taken up the
other with one hand and dashed his head on the floor. And it did
not end there. I doubt if in craft the priest was his equal.
Behind a frank brutality Bezers--unless his reputation belied
him--concealed an Italian intellect. Under a cynical
recklessness he veiled a rare cunning and a constant suspicion;
enjoying in that respect a combination of apparently opposite
qualities, which I have known no other man to possess in an equal
degree, unless it might be his late majesty, Henry the Great. A
child would have suspected the priest; a veteran might have been
taken in by the Vidame.

And indeed the priest's eyes presently sank. "Our bargain is to
go for nothing?" he muttered sullenly.

"I know of no bargain," quoth the Vidame. "And I have no time to
lose, splitting hairs here. Set it down to what you like. Say
it is a whim of mine, a fad, a caprice. Only understand that
Madame de Pavannes stays. We go. And--" he added this, as a
sudden thought seemed to strike him, "though I would not
willingly use compulsion to a lady, I think Madame d'O had better
come too."

"You speak masterfully," the priest said with a sneer, forgetting
the tone he had himself used a few minutes before to Mirepoix.

"Just so. I have forty horsemen over the way," was the dry
answer. "For the moment, I am master of the legions, Coadjutor."

"That is true," Madame d'O said; so softly that I started. She