But, besides that music, like beauty, is often most delightful, or at least most interesting, to the imagination when its charms are but partially displayed and the imagination is left to fill up what is from distance but imperfectly detailed, Quentin had matter enough to fill up his reverie during the intervals of fascination.

He could not doubt, from the report of his uncle's comrades and the scene which had passed in the presence chamber that morning, that the siren who thus delighted his ears, was not, as he had profanely supposed, the daughter or kinswoman of a base Cabaretier [inn keeper], but the same disguised and distressed Countess for whose cause kings and princes were now about to buckle on armour, and put lance in rest.

A hundred wild dreams, such as romantic and adventurous youth readily nourished in a romantic and adventurous age, chased from his eyes the bodily presentiment of the actual scene, and substituted their own bewildering delusions, when at once, and rudely, they were banished by a rough grasp laid upon his weapon, and a harsh voice which exclaimed, close to his ear, "Ha! Pasques dieu, Sir Squire, methinks you keep sleepy ward." The voice was the tuneless, yet impressive and ironical tone of Maitre Pierre, and Quentin, suddenly recalled to himself, saw, with shame and fear, that he had, in his reverie, permitted Louis himself--entering probably by some secret door, and gliding along by the wall, or behind the tapestry--to approach him so nearly as almost to master his weapon.
The first impulse of his surprise was to free his harquebuss by a violent exertion, which made the King stagger backward into the hall.
His next apprehension was that, in obeying the animal instinct, as it may be termed, which prompts a brave man to resist an attempt to disarm him, he had aggravated, by a personal struggle with the King, the displeasure produced by the negligence with which he had performed his duty upon guard; and, under this impression, he recovered his harquebuss without almost knowing what he did, and, having again shouldered it, stood motionless before the Monarch, whom he had reason to conclude he had mortally offended.
Louis, whose tyrannical disposition was less founded on natural ferocity or cruelty of temper, than on cold blooded policy and jealous suspicion, had, nevertheless, a share of that caustic severity which would have made him a despot in private conversation, and he always seemed to enjoy the pain which he inflicted on occasions like the present.

But he did not push his triumph far, and contented himself with saying, "Thy service of the morning hath already overpaid some negligence in so young a soldier .-- Hast thou dined ?" Quentin, who rather looked to be sent to the Provost Marshal than greeted with such a compliment, answered humbly in the negative.
"Poor lad," said Louis, in a softer tone than he usually spoke in, "hunger hath made him drowsy .-- I know thine appetite is a wolf," he continued; "and I will save thee from one wild beast as thou didst me from another; thou hast been prudent too in that matter, and I thank thee for it .-- Canst thou yet hold out an hour without food ?" "Four-and-twenty, Sire," replied Durward, "or I were no true Scot." "I would not for another kingdom be the pasty which should encounter thee after such a vigil," said the King; "but the question now is, not of thy dinner, but of my own.

I admit to my table this day, and in strict privacy, the Cardinal Balue and this Burgundian--this Count de Crevecoeur--and something may chance; the devil is most busy when foes meet on terms of truce." He stopped, and remained silent, with a deep and gloomy look.