"'Tis ill speaking against dignities," he replied presently, with a
certain sullen pride. "I daresay the young fellow took service with
the marshal to escape from home, and is in hiding at Tiffauges, or
mayhap Machecoul itself. Or he may well have been listening at some
lattice of the Hotel de Pornic itself to the idiot clamour of his
mother and of the ignorant rabble of Paris!"
"Your master loves the society of the young?" queried Laurence,
mending carefully a string of his viol and keeping the end of the
catgut in his mouth as he spoke.
"He doats on all young people," answered Gilles de Sille, eagerly, the
flicker of a smile running about his mouth like wild-fire over a swamp.
"Why, when a youth of parts once takes service with my master, he
never leaves it for any other, not even the King's!"
Which in its way was a true enough statement.
"Well," quoth Master Laurence, when he had tied his string and
finished cocking his viol and twingle-twangling it to his
satisfaction, "you speak well. And I am not sure but what I may think
of it.
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