But the price?
Alas! that too would intrude itself, and more frequently as the evening waned; so that as I marked this or that thing by the road, which I could recall passing on my journey south with thoughts so different, with plans that now seemed so very, very old, I asked myself grimly if this were really I; if this were Gil de Berault, known at Zaton's, PREMIER JOUEUR, or some Don Quichotte from Castille, tilting at windmills and taking barbers' bowls for gold.
We reached Agen very late that evening, after groping our way through a by-road near the river, set with holes and willow-stools and frog-spawn--a place no better than a slough; so that after it the great fires and lights at the Blue Maid seemed like a glimpse of a new world, and in a twinkling put something of life and spirits into two at least of us.

There was queer talk round the hearth here, of doings in Paris, of a stir against the Cardinal with the Queen-mother at bottom, and of grounded expectations that something might this time come of it.

But the landlord pooh-poohed the idea; and I more than agreed with him.

Even M.
de Cocheforet, who was at first inclined to build on it, gave up hope when he heard that it came only by way of Montauban; whence--since its reduction the year before--all sort of CANARDS against the Cardinal were always on the wing.
'They kill him about once a month,' our host said with a grin.
'Sometimes it is MONSIEUR is to prove a match for him, sometimes CESAR MONSIEUR--the Duke of Vendome, you understand--and sometimes the Queen-mother.

But since M.de Chalais and the Marshal made a mess of it and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to his Eminence--that is his new title, they tell me.' 'Things are quiet round here ?' I asked.
'Perfectly.