"And you!" she cried, "who speak so slow, and look so solemn, and all the time do his dirty work, like the meanest cook he has ennobled! It is well you are here! ENFIN, you are found out--you and your provisions! Your provisions, of which you talked in the wood!""MON DIEU!" the King groaned; "give me patience!""He has given me patience these ten years, sire!" she retorted passionately. "Patience to see myself flouted by your favourites, insulted and displaced, and set aside! But this is too much! It was enough that you made yourself the laughing-stock of France once with this madame! I will not have it again --no: though twenty of your counsellors frown at me!""Your Majesty seems displeased," I said. "But as I am quite in the dark--""Liar!" she cried, giving way to her fury. "When you were with her this morning! When you saw her! When you stooped to--""Madame!" he King said sternly, "if you forget yourself, be good enough to remember that you are speaking to French gentlemen, not to traders of Florence!"She sneered. "You think to wound me by that!" she cried, breathing quickly. "But I have my grandfather's blood in me, sire; and no King of France--""One King of France will presently make your uncle of that blood sing small!" the King answered viciously. "So much for that;and for the rest, sweetheart, softly, softly!""Oh!" she cried, "I will go: I will not stay to be outraged by that woman's presence!"I had now an inkling what was the matter; and discerning that the quarrel was a more serious matter than their every-day bickerings, and threatened to go to lengths that might end in disaster, I ignored the insult her Majesty had flung at me, and entreated her to be calm. "if I understand aright, madame," Isaid, "you have some grievance against his Majesty. Of that Iknow nothing. But I also understand that you allege something against me; and it is to speak to that, I presume, that I am summoned. If you will deign to put the matter into words--""Words!" she cried. "You have words enough! But get out of this, Master Grave-Airs, if you can! Did you, or did you not, tell me this morning that the Princess of Conde was in Brussels?""I did, madame."
"Although half an hour before you had seen her, you had talked with her, you had been with her in the forest?""But I had not, madame!"
"What?" she cried, staring at me, surprised doubtless that Imanifested no confusion. "Do you say that you did not see her?""I did not."
"Nor the King?"
"The King, Madame, cannot have seen her this morning," I said, "because he is here and she is in Brussels.""You persist in that?"
"Certainly!" I said. "Besides, madame," I continued, "I have no doubt that the King has given you his word--""His word is good for everyone but his wife!" she answered bitterly. "And for yours, M. le Duc, I will show you what it is worth. Mademoiselle, call--""Nay, madame!" I said, interrupting her with spirit, "if you are going to call your household to contradict me--""But I am not!" she cried in a voice of triumph that, for the moment, disconcerted me. "Mademoiselle, send to M. de Bassompierre's lodgings, and bid him come to me!"The King whistled softly, while I, who knew Bassompierre to be devoted to him, and to be, in spite of the levity to which his endless gallantries bore witness, a man of sense and judgment, prepared myself for a serious struggle; judging that we were in the meshes of an intrigue, wherein it was impossible to say whether the Queen figured as actor or dupe. The passion she evinced as she walked to and fro with clenched hands, or turned now and again to dart a fiery glance at the Cordovan curtain that hid the door, was so natural to her character that I found myself leaning to the latter supposition. Still, in grave doubt what part Bassompierre was to play, I looked for his coming as anxiously as anyone. And probably the King shared this feeling;but he affected indifference, and continued to sit over the fire with an air of mingled scorn and peevishness.
At length Bassompierre entered, and, seeing the King, advanced with an open brow that persuaded me, at least, of his innocence.
Attacked on the instant, however, by the Queen, and taken by surprise, as it were, between two fires--though the King kept silence, and merely shrugged his shoulders--his countenance fell.
He was at that time one of the handsomest gallants about the Court, thirty years old, and the darling of women; but at this his APLOMB failed him, and with it my heart sank also.
"Answer, sir! answer!" the Queen cried. "And without subterfuge! Who was it, sir, whom you saw come from the forest this morning?""Madame?"
"In one word!"
"If your Majesty will--"
"I will permit you to answer," the Queen exclaimed.
"I saw his Majesty return," he faltered--"and M. de Sully.""Before them! before them!"
"I may have been mistaken."
"Pooh, man!" the Queen cried with biting contempt. "You have told it to half-a-dozen. Discretion comes a little late.""Well, if you will, madame," he said, striving to assert himself, but cutting a poor figure, "I fancied that I saw Madame de Conde --""Come out of the wood ten minutes before the King?""It may have been twenty," he muttered.
But the Queen cared no more for him. She turned, looking superb in her wrath, to the King. "Now, sir!" she said. "Am I to bear this?""Sweet!" the King said, governing his temper in a way that surprised me, "hear reason, and you shall have it in a word. How near was Bassompierre to the lady he saw?""I was not within fifty paces of her!" the favourite cried eagerly.
