Master François looked into her watchful eyes with a wise smile.

"Be secret, sweet," he murmured. "It was Her Majesty, the Queen." A
wild roar of laughter from Villon's friends greeted this sally, and
the fury it brought to Huguette's face. Louis, royally angered, made
as if to rise in protest, but the heavy hand of Tristan fell on his
shoulder and restrained him, and Villon, noticing his irritation,
waved him down with a pacifying gesture.

"Now, now, my rum duke," he cried, "your loyalty need not take fire.
It was not her majesty, but her name I shall keep to myself, though
it is written on my shoulders in fair large blue and black bruises."

This statement stirred a murmur of surprise in the gathering. "Did
the pink and gold popinjay beat you?" Montigny asked, interpreting
the general curiosity.

"No, no," Villon answered. "It came about thus. We tinkers of verses
set a price on our wares that few find them worth, yet with the
love-fever in my veins I wrote rhymes to this lady and sent them to
her fairly writ on a piece of parchment that cost me a dinner."

"Did you think she would come to your whistle like a bird to a
lure?" Louis enquired playfully. Villon sighed again.

"In this kind of madness a minstrel thinks himself a new Orpheus who
could win a woman out of hell with his music. But I got my
answer--oh, I got my answer."

He dropped suddenly into a moody silence, which was not to the taste