"'Tis for parting the hair!"

"And that charming little silver box with a chased cover?"

"Oh, that is something Rene sent, sire; 'tis the famous opiate which he
has been promising me so long--to make still sweeter the lips which your
majesty has been good enough sometimes to find rather sweet."

And Henry, as if to test what the charming woman said, touched his lips
to the ones which she was looking at so attentively in the mirror. Now
that they were returning to the field of coquetry, the cloud began to
lift from the baroness's brow. She took up the box which had thus been
explained, and was just going to show Henry how the vermilion salve was
used, when a sharp rap at the antechamber door startled the two lovers.

"Some one is knocking, madame," said Dariole, thrusting her head through
the opening of the portiere.

"Go and find out who it is, and come back," said Madame de Sauve. Henry
and Charlotte looked at each other anxiously, and Henry was beginning to
think of retiring to the oratory, in which he had already more than once
taken refuge, when Dariole reappeared.

"Madame," said she, "it is Maitre Rene, the perfumer."

At this name Henry frowned, and involuntarily bit his lips.

"Do you want me to refuse him admission?" asked Charlotte.

"No!" said Henry; "Maitre Rene never does anything without having
previously thought about it. If he comes to you, it is because he has a
reason for coming."

"In that case, do you wish to hide?"

"I shall be careful not to," said Henry, "for Maitre Rene knows
everything; therefore Maitre Rene knows that I am here."

"But has not your majesty some reason for thinking his presence painful
to you?"

"I!" said Henry, making an effort, which in spite of his will-power he
could not wholly dissimulate. "I! none at all! we are rather cool to
each other, it is true; but since the night of Saint Bartholomew we have
been reconciled."

"Let him enter!" said Madame de Sauve to Dariole.

A moment later Rene appeared, and took in the whole room at a glance.

Madame de Sauve was still before her toilet-table.

Henry had resumed his place on the couch.

Charlotte was in the light, and Henry in the shadow.

"Madame," said Rene, with respectful familiarity, "I have come to offer
my apologies."

"For what, Rene?" asked Madame de Sauve, with that condescension which
pretty women always use towards the world of tradespeople who surround
them, and whose duty it is to make t