nothing else to ask
you and I consider myself the happiest man in the world. But you know
happiness is always accompanied by some lack. Adam, in the midst of
Eden, was not perfectly happy, and he bit into that miserable apple
which imposed upon us all that love for novelty that makes every one
spend his life in the search for something unknown. Tell me, my darling,
in order to help me to find mine, didn't Queen Catharine at first bid
you love me?"

"Henry," exclaimed Madame de Sauve, "speak lower when you speak of the
queen mother!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Henry, with a spontaneity and boldness which deceived
Madame de Sauve herself, "it was a good thing formerly to distrust her,
kind mother that she is, but then we were not on good terms; but now
that I am her daughter's husband"--

"Madame Marguerite's husband!" exclaimed Charlotte, flushing with
jealousy.

"Speak low in your turn," said Henry; "now that I am her daughter's
husband we are the best friends in the world. What was it they wanted?
For me to become a Catholic, so it seems. Well, grace has touched me,
and by the intercession of Saint Bartholomew I have become one. We live
together like brethren in a happy family--like good Christians."

"And Queen Marguerite?"

"Queen Marguerite?" repeated Henry; "oh, well, she is the link uniting
us."

"But, Henry, you said that the Queen of Navarre, as a reward for the
devotion I showed her, had been generous to me. If what you say is true,
if this generosity, for which I have cherished deep gratitude toward
her, is genuine, she is a connecting link easy to break. So you cannot
trust to this support, for you have not made your pretended intimacy
impose on any one."

"Still I do rest on it, and for three months it has been the bolster on
which I have slept."

"Then, Henry!" cried Madame de Sauve, "you have deceived me, and Madame
Marguerite is really your wife."

Henry smiled.

"There, Henry," said Madame de Sauve, "you have given me one of those
exasperating smiles which make me feel the cruel desire to scratch your
eyes out, king though you are."

"Then," said Henry, "I seem to be imposing now by means of this
pretended friendship, since there are moments when, king though I am,
you desire to scratch out my eyes, because you believe that it exists!"

"Henry! Henry!" said Madame de Sauve, "I believe that God himself does
not know what your thoughts are."

"My sweetheart," said Henry, "I think that Catharine