While Hopart and Guicheaux discovered themselves in such excellent fettle over the recovery of their idol, no less a person than Madame Jeanne du Guesclin presented her husband’s pennon before the great gates of La BelliÈre.

The disgrace at the Oak of Mivoie had sent Madame Jeanne upon a pilgrimage among her friends, for the news of Bertrand’s troth-breaking had challenged her pride, if it had not troubled her affection. Sieur Robert, a fat imbecile, had been left to gormandize at Cancale, while the wife, with sweet Olivier at her side, rode out to play the Roman mother. It was a necessary discretion that Bertrand should be sacrificed, nor did Madame Jeanne fail in the heroism of her indignation.

Sumptuous in red gown, with streamers of gold at the elbows, a short “spencer” of blue cloth open at the hips, a hood of some amber-colored stuff with liripipia of green silk, Madame Jeanne rode her roan horse into the La BelliÈre court. Olivier, as flushed and splendid as his mother, straight-waisted, full and jagged in the sleeves, smiled at the wide welkin as though his motto were, “By God’s soul, I am the man.” Ten armed servants in red and green, a falconer, two huntsmen with four hounds in leash, followed hard at madame’s heels.

Some people seem designed by nature for the more spacious ways of life, for terraces that touch the sunset, marble stairways, and chairs of gold. This largeness of presence was part of Jeanne du Guesclin’s birthright. Standing in the state solar of La BelliÈre, with one hand on Olivier’s shoulder, she dwarfed her slim fop of a son, whose mawkish look betrayed the oppression of a youth tired by indiscriminate motherly conceit.

The window of the solar, with its scarlet cushions and carved pillars in the jambs, looked out upon the garden, where Madame Jeanne could see the Vicomte asleep on the bench under the Pucelle de Saintonge. Half an hour had passed since Girard had bowed them into the state solar, and Madame Jeanne was not a lady who could wait in patience. She watched Stephen Raguenel with a slight twitching of her nostrils and the air of a grand seigneuress much upon her dignity.

“It seems that they do things slowly at La BelliÈre.”

Olivier yawned behind his hand.

“The roads are devilish dry,” he remarked. “I should not quarrel with a cup of wine. The old gentleman there appears to have eaten a big dinner.”

“The servants must be fools.”

“Probably Madame TiphaÏne is looking out her very best gown.” And Olivier began to flick the dust from the embroidery and the slashed splendor of his cÔte hardie.

Jeanne du Guesclin looked at him and smiled.

“If Robin Raguenel is half as handsome—”

“Pooh, mother!”

“—as Messire Olivier.”

“Confound my good looks,” and he pretended to appear modestly impatient. “How often are you talking to me as though I were a fool of a peacock?”

“There, put your girdle straight, Olivier. If I have a handsome son, am I not allowed to use my eyes?”

“I may be straighter in the legs than Bertrand,” and he gave a sharp and shallow laugh.

“Bertrand, indeed! We shall soon have done with the worthless fool. My friends cannot say that I am prejudiced in the man’s favor, since I have been the first to tell many of them the truth.”

“Poor fellow!”

It was curious to watch Jeanne du Guesclin’s eyes change their expression—like water that seems hardened by the passing of a cloud.

“Remember, you have taken Bertrand’s place,” she said.

“Poor Bertrand!” and he showed his teeth; “if Beaumanoir catches him, he will most assuredly be hanged.”

“Let them hang the traitor. I can have no pity for a turncoat and a coward.”

TiphaÏne was in her brother’s room, looking through the hundred and one things that had belonged to Robin: his whips and hunting-spears; the jesses, hoods, and gloves he had used in hawking; a few books; a great press full of perfumed clothes. On a peg by the window hung the surcoat that Bertrand had worn at Mivoie. The room was much as the lad had left it on the night of his flight to the abbey of Lehon. None of the servants had dared to touch the room. The care of all these treasures of a young man’s youth had been left to TiphaÏne like some sacred trust.

It was in this room that Girard found her, kneeling before the great carved chest, her brother’s helmet in her lap. She was burnishing the armor that Robin should have worn at Mivoie, and whose sheen displayed the scars gotten from the English swords. The light from the window fell across her figure as she knelt, her hair aglow, her eyes deep with the pathos of the past.

“Madame.”

To Girard it seemed that she had been praying, and perhaps weeping, over her brother’s arms. His voice startled her, for she had not heard the opening of the door.

“Girard?”

The old man bowed to her as she rose with Robin’s helmet in her hands.

“Pardon, madame, there are guests in the great solar.”

“I heard the sound of trumpets, Girard, and thought that Messire Bertrand had returned.”

“It is his mother, madame.”

“Jeanne du Guesclin?”

“And Messire Olivier with her.”

TiphaÏne laid Robin’s helmet upon the bed, closed the great chest, and went to her own room, telling Girard not to wake the Vicomte. She changed her old gown for one of grass-green dusted with violets, fastened on a girdle of beaten silver and a brooch of lapis lazuli at her throat. Like Girard, she believed that Jeanne du Guesclin had ridden to La BelliÈre with the news of Bertrand’s nobleness ringing like some old epic in her ears.

The windows of the gallery that led from TiphaÏne’s room towards the chapel and the great solar looked out westward over the main court. The sun beat full upon these windows, and TiphaÏne, as she passed, had a blurred vision of Jeanne du Guesclin’s men, in their red jupons slashed with green, crowding round some of the La BelliÈre servants. They appeared to be arguing and chaffering over some piece of news. In fact, Madame Jeanne’s men were in the process of being enlightened as to that truth of which their mistress was most unmotherly in her ignorance. TiphaÏne loitered a moment at one of the windows. She had an instinctive antipathy for the haughty-mouthed lady of Motte Broon. The two strong natures were in contrast, and TiphaÏne was in no mood for uncovering her heart for the edification of this woman, whom she had distrusted ever since the days at Rennes.

To Girard, TiphaÏne had given orders that the Vicomte was not to be disturbed, for she had taken the cares of the household on her own shoulders; nor was her father in a fit state to be afflicted with the irresponsible sympathy of inquisitive friends. The honor of the chÂteau was with TiphaÏne, and it was this same honor that brought Girard to the door of the state solar ten minutes after his mistress had entered. Girard’s fist was about to knock, when the pitch of the voices from within suggested suddenly that any intrusion would be indiscreet.

Girard stood there stroking his chin and knowing not for the moment whether to enter or to retire. TiphaÏne was speaking, not loudly, but with that intensity of self-restraint that made each word ring like the clear stroke of a bell. Girard, who had known her since a child, and had grown familiar with every modulation of her voice, could see her, even though the door was shut. She would be standing at her full height, her head thrown back a little, her eyes looking straight at the face of the woman to whom she spoke.

Soon a harsher, sharper voice broke in at intervals, questioning, criticising, snapping out short sentences with too evident a twinge of temper. Madame Jeanne had lost her haughty poise, and Girard, smiling a shrewd smile, thanked Heaven that he did not wear the Du Guesclin livery. From time to time a thinner and less aggressive voice would interpose, drawling out a few half-apologetic syllables—Messire Olivier trying to play the part of the wise and conciliating man of the world.

Girard was in the act of turning to retreat when he heard footsteps sweeping towards the door.

“Madame,” said Jeanne du Guesclin’s voice, harsh and metallic with inexpressible impatience, “you need not twit me with having blundered. What I heard I heard, and we credulous mortals are very human. Olivier, your arm.”

The door swung back, and Girard, caught before he could scramble round the corner, flattened himself against the wall. He had a glimpse of Jeanne du Guesclin’s face shining like a red sun through a thunder cloud, her lower lip pinched by her strong, white teeth. She came sweeping out on Olivier’s arm—Olivier, who looked like a wet chicken trying to appear worthy of an incensed and fluffed-up hen.

Jeanne du Guesclin saw Girard flattened like a pilaster against the wall, and recognized him as the man in office who had ordered the trumpets to blow a fanfan in her honor.

“Fellow, my horses!”

Girard contrived to bend at the hips.

“Order my men to be ready to return to Dinan in ten minutes.”

“It shall be done, madame.”

And Girard disappeared like a flitting shadow down the stairs.

Fate, however, reserved a more scathing ordeal for the chastening of Jeanne du Guesclin’s pride. Probably she never realized in life how insolent the truth could be till that moment when she came out from the doorway of the hall, and, standing at the top of a flight of steps, looked down upon the crowd of servants in the castle court.

The crowd was divided into two parties, distinguishable in the bulk by the contrasting colors of their liveries. Before the great gate the red and green of the Du Guesclins had huddled itself into a sullen and silent knot, while the blue and silver of La BelliÈre fluttered more cheerily across the court. But the dramatic energy of the scene seemed centred in two shabby, swaggering figures footing it to and fro under the noses of Jeanne du Guesclin’s men.

Messires Hopart and Guicheaux were taking their revenge, arm in arm, with a flourish of swords and the happy arrogance of a pair of heroes. The La BelliÈre servants appeared to be applauding their bombast and their swagger. Not so Jeanne du Guesclin’s men, whose toes were being trodden on and whose ribs had suffered from the ironical raillery of the mighty Hopart’s elbows. Bertrand’s rapscallions were top dogs for the moment.

“Hallo, sirs!”—and Guicheaux spread his fingers at one of Olivier’s grooms who had taken part in the “scourging” at Cancale, “—who said Messire Bertrand did not fight at Mivoie? They swallow strange tales at Gleaquim, eh?”

A figure in red and green growled out:

“God have pity on these two fools!”

“Fools?” and Hopart stopped dead in front of a little man who had ventured the insult. “So it is you, Jacques, my little pig, eh? I have always heard that swine are unclean brutes in the matter of food. Did you say ‘fools’?”

Hopart, bulking big, with a face like a devouring fire, stared at the little man and shook a huge, brown fist.

“Did you say ‘fool,’ little pig?”

“Let Jacques be, bully Hopart.”

“So!” and Hopart set his hoof on the great toe of the second man who had spoken, and emphasized the rebuke by a sounding smack across the mouth.

“Come out and fight,” he said; “we are not in madame’s piggery now.”

The crowd roared. Hopart’s swagger neared the sublime, his great, fiery face making the men in red and green blink like a brood of startled owls. Hopart was too big and threatening to be taken by the beard. No one answered his challenge, and the two heroes strutted to and fro again like a couple of prize cocks.

Jeanne du Guesclin, standing at the top of the stairway leading from the hall, saw all this in the compass of a moment. Nor had her coming been lost upon Hopart and Guicheaux. They doffed their caps to her with exaggerated gestures of respect, a display of mock homage that turned all eyes upon the proud figure of the lady.

Jeanne du Guesclin’s face was white with anger.

“Olivier”—and she bit her words—“go down and give those swine a beating with your sword.”

“Madame mother, leave the men to me.”

It was not Olivier who had answered her, and Dame Jeanne started as though a snake had fallen at her feet. She turned and saw Bertrand standing on the threshold of the hall, his face impassive, his arms folded across his chest.

For the first time in her life Jeanne du Guesclin faltered before her son. There was a peculiar look in Bertrand’s eyes, a look that shamed her, leaving her speechless and at his mercy.

“Guicheaux! Hopart!” And he went down the steps into the court.

The two worthies had discarded all swagger and were meek as lambs.

“Yes, captain?”

“We are here, captain.”

Their innocence was sublime. No school-boy could have equalled it. Bertrand struggled hard to hide a smile.

“You are too noisy, you two. Stand back and remember your manners.”

They stood back, yet ready to wink at the first chance.

“Certainly, captain. We were amusing ourselves a little.”

“Cease to be amused.”

And for the life of him Bertrand could not bully them further when they looked at him like a pair of rough and mischievous dogs ready to come and lick his hands.

Two men in red and green were leading Madame Jeanne’s roan horse forward. She was still standing at the top of the steps, looking at Bertrand and biting her lower lip. All the prejudices of twenty years seemed shadowed forth upon her face. Even the cherished Olivier was afraid to meet her eyes.

Jeanne du Guesclin saw Bertrand take the roan’s bridle from the hands of one of the grooms. To those who watched her closely it seemed that some great struggle was passing behind the proud and full-lipped face. Her eyes had the strained look of an imperious nature to whom the bitterest ordeal may be the forgiving of defeat.

“Madame.”

Bertrand was before her, holding the bridle of her horse. His face appeared cold and impassive, and yet there was a slight softening of the stubborn mouth. Olivier, a mere pawn in this pageant of pride and passion, stood to one side, playing with his sword.

“Madame mother, may I help you to mount?”

Jeanne du Guesclin came down the steps like one under compulsion, and suffered Bertrand to take her hand. A strange thrill swept through her at the touch. It was as though she had realized with a flash of intuition that it was possible for a woman to be despised by her own son.

“Bertrand.”

He saw her lips tremble, saw her color and then go pale.

“Mother.”

It was as though the word struck her on the bosom—over her heart. She flashed an indescribable look at him, a look half of defiance, half of awe.

“Bertrand—”

He bent his head.

“You will come to us at Cancale?”

The words were half whispered, but Bertrand heard them, and felt all that was passing in Jeanne du Guesclin’s heart.

“Mother, you can command.”

He saw her draw a deep and hurried breath, and felt her grasp tighten upon his hand. Her eyes, full of the stormy instincts of a woman’s soul, betrayed a half-hunger for something that she could not name.

“Then—you will come? I ask it.”

“Yes.”

“Thanks. You are generous—more generous than I deserve.”

Thus far her pride would bend itself, and Bertrand, as he helped her to the saddle, felt her hand close again spasmodically on his. He knew the iron of his mother’s will, and understood how much those few words meant.

He walked beside her to the gate. And there, like a woman whose true instincts break through the ice of years, she looked long at him, and touched his forehead with her hand.

“Do not forget us at Cancale.”

“No, I shall not forget.”

“You have given us great honor.”

“Madame, remember, I am still Bertrand, your son.”