easily than usual; and I soon found that
I was not wrong in the inference I drew from these facts. For when I
entered her chamber that remarkable woman, who, whatever her enemies
may say, combined with her beauty a very uncommon degree of sense and
discretion, met me with a low courtesy and a smile of derision. "So,"
she said, "M. de Rosny, not satisfied with furnishing me with evidence,
gives me proof."

"How, Madame?" I said; though I well understood.

"By his presence here," she answered. "An hour ago," she continued,
"the King was with me. I had not then the slightest ground to expect
this honour, or I am sure that his Majesty would have stayed to share
it. But I have since seen reason to expect it, and you observe that I
am not unprepared."

She spoke with a sparkling eye, and an expression of the most lively
resentment; so that, had M. de Perrot been in my place I think that he
would have shed more tears. I was myself somewhat dashed, though I
knew the prudence that governed her in her most impetuous sallies;
still, to avoid the risk of hearing things which we might both
afterwards wish unsaid, I came to the point. "I fear that I have timed
my visit ill, Madame," I said. "You have some complaint against me."

"Only that you are like the others," she answered with a fine contempt.
"You profess one thing and do another."

"As for example?"

"For example!" she replied, with a scornful laugh. "How many times
have you told me that you left women, and intrigues in which women had
part, on one side?"

I bowed.

"And now I find you--you and that Perrot, that creature!--intriguing
against me; intriguing with some country chit to--"

"Madame!" I said, cutting her short with a show of temper, "where did
you get this?"

"Do you deny it?" she cried, looking so beautiful in her anger that I
thought I had never seen her to such advantage. "Do you deny that you
took the King there?"

"No. Certainly I took the King there."

"To Perrot's? You admit it?"

"Certainly," I said, "for a purpose."

"A purpose!" she cried with withering scorn. "Was it not that the
King might see that girl?"

"Yes," I replied patiently, "it was."

She stared at me. "And you can tell me that to my face!" she said.

"I see no reason why I should not, Madame," I replied easily--"I cannot
conceive why you should object to the union--and many why you should
desire to see two people happy. Otherwise, if I had had any id