THE QUEEN’S HAND.
When Charny reentered the house, he felt overwhelmed by what he had
seen—that he should have discovered this retreat, which he had thought
so precious, only to be the witness of a crime, committed by the queen
against her conjugal duty and royal dignity. This man must be a lover;
in vain did he try to persuade himself that the rose was the pledge of
some political compact, given instead of a letter, which might have
been too compromising. The passionate kiss which he had seen imprinted
on it forbade this supposition. These thoughts haunted him all night
and all the next day, through which he waited with a feverish
impatience, fearing the new revelations which the night might bring
forth. He saw her taking her ordinary walk with her ladies, then
watched the lights extinguished one by one, and he waited nervously for
the stroke of midnight, the hour of the rendezvous of the preceding
night. It struck, and no one had appeared. He then wondered how he
could have expected it; she surely would not repeat the same imprudence
two nights following. But as these thoughts passed through his mind, he
heard the key turn again and saw the door open. Charny grew deadly pale
when he recognized the same two figures enter the park. “Oh, it is too
much,” he said to himself, and then repeated his movements of the night
before, swearing that, whatever happened, he would restrain himself,
and remember that she was his queen. All passed exactly as the night
before: the confidante left and returned with the same man; only this
time, instead of advancing with his former timid respect, he almost ran
up to the queen, and kneeled down before her. Charny could not hear
what he said, but he seemed to speak with passionate energy. She did
not reply, but stood in a pensive attitude; then he spoke again, and at
last she said a few words, in a low voice, when the unknown cried out,
in a loud voice, so that Charny could hear, “Oh! thanks, your majesty,
till to-morrow, then.” The queen drew her hood still more over her
face, and held out both her hands to the unknown, who imprinted on them
a kiss so long and tender that Charny gnashed his teeth with rage. The
queen then took the arm of her companion and walked quickly away; the
unknown passed also. Charny remained in a state of fury not to be
described; he ran about the park like a madman: at last he began to
wonder where this man came from; he traced his steps to the door behind
the baths of Apollo. He comes not from Versailles, but from Paris,
thought Charny, and to-morrow he will return, for he said, “to-morrow.”
Till then let me devour my tears in silence, but to-morrow shall be the
last day of my life, for we will be four at the rendezvous.