"What do you mean? I thought you had finished moving three days ago."

"Yes, sire; but I don't find myself comfortable where I am, and so I am
going to change to the opposite side of the building."

"Was I not right when I said you were abandoning me!" exclaimed the
king. "Oh! this exceeds all endurance! But so it is. There was only one
woman for whom my heart cared at all, and all my family is leagued
together to tear her from me; and my friend, to whom I confided my
distress, and who helped me to bear up under it, has become wearied of
my complaints, and is going to leave me without even asking my
permission."

Saint-Aignan began to laugh. The king at once guessed there must be some
mystery in this want of respect. "What is it?" cried the king, full of
hope.

"This, sire, that the friend whom the king calumniates is going to try
if he cannot restore to his sovereign the happiness he has lost."

"Are you going to let me see La Valliere?" said Louis XIV.

"I cannot say so, positively, but I hope so."

"How--how?--tell me that, Saint-Aignan. I wish to know what your project
is, and to help you with all my power."

"Sire," replied Saint-Aignan, "I cannot, even myself, tell very well how
I must set about attaining success; but I have every reason to believe
that from to-morrow--"

"To-morrow, do you say! What happiness! But why are you changing your
rooms?"

"In order to serve your majesty to greater advantage."

"How can your moving serve me?"

"Do you happen to know where the two rooms destined for De Guiche are
situated?"

"Yes."

"Well, your majesty now knows where I am going."

"Very likely; but that does not help me."

"What! is it possible you do not understand, sire, that above De
Guiche's lodgings are two rooms, one of which is Mademoiselle de
Montalais's, and the other--"

"La Valliere's, is it not so, Saint-Aignan? Oh! yes, yes. It is a
brilliant idea. Saint-Aignan, at true friend's idea, a poet's idea; in
bringing me nearer her from whom the whole world seems to unite to
separate me; you are far more than Pylades was for Orestes, or Patroclus
for Achilles."

"Sire," said Aignan, with a smile, "I question whether, if your majesty
were to know my projects in their full extent, you would continue to
confer such pompous qualifications upon me. Ah! sire, I know how very
different are the epithets which certain Puritans of the court will not
fail to apply to me when they learn what I intend