But even
as I was on the point of entering, not only his voice, but the very
words that he was uttering floated out to my ears, and they were of
a quality that held me there to play the hidden listener for the
second time in my life in one and the same day.
CHAPTER XVII
THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE
Never until that hour, as I stood in the porch of the Hotel de
l'Epee, hearkening to my henchman's narrative and to the bursts of
laughter which ever and anon it provoked from his numerous
listeners, had I dreamed of the raconteur talents which Rodenard
might boast. Yet was I very far from being appreciative now that
I discovered them, for the story that he told was of how one Marcel
Saint-Pol, Marquis de Bardelys, had laid a wager with the Comte de
Chatellerault that he would woo and win Mademoiselle de Lavedan to
wife within three months. Nor did he stop there. Rodenard, it
would seem, was well informed; he had drawn all knowledge of the
state of things from Castelroux's messenger, and later - I know not
from whom - at Toulouse, since his arrival.
He regaled the company, therefore, with a recital of our finding
the dying Lesperon, and of how I had gone off alone, and evidently
assumed the name and role of that proscribed rebel, and thus
conducted my wooing under sympathy inspiring circumstances at
Lavedan. Then came, he announced, the very cream of the jest, when
I was arrested as Lesperon and brought to Toulouse and to trial in
Lesperon's stead; he told them how I had been sentenced to death
in the other man's place, and he assured them that I would certainly
have been beheaded upon the morrow but that news had been borne to
him - Rodenard - of my plight, and he was come to deliver me.
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