"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 idea, even
the slightest, that the matter was obnoxious to you, I would not have
engaged in it."
"But--what was your purpose then?" she muttered, in a different tone.
"To obtain the King's good word with M. de Perrot to permit the
marriage of his son with his niece; who is, unfortunately, without a
portion."
Madame uttered a low exclamation, and her eyes wandering from me, she
took up--as if her thoughts strayed also--a small ornament; from the
table beside her. "Ah!" she said, looking at it closely. "But
Perrot's son did he know of this?"
"No," I answered, smiling. "But I have heard that women can love as
well as men, Madame. And sometimes ingenuously."
I heard her draw a sigh of relief, and I knew that if I had not
persuaded her I had accomplished much. I was not surprised when,
laying down the ornament with which she had been toying, she turned on
me one of those rare smiles to which the King could refuse nothing; and
wherein wit, tenderness, and gaiety were so happily blended that no
conceivable beauty of feature, uninspired by sensibility, could vie
with them. "Good friend, I have sinned," she said. "But I am a woman,
and I love. Pardon me. As for your PROTEGEE, from this moment she is
mine also. I will speak to the King this evening; and if he does not
at once," Madame continued, with a gleam of archness that showed me
that she was not yet free from suspicion, "issue his commands to M. de
Perrot, I shall know what to think; and his Majesty will suffer!"
I thanked her profusely, and in fitting terms. Then, after a word or
two about some assignments for the expenses of her household, in
settling which there had been delay--a matter wherein, also, I
contrived to do her pleasure and the King's service no wrong--I very
willingly took my leave, and, calling my people, started homewards on
foot. I had not gone twenty paces, however, before M. de Perrot, whose
impatience had chained him to the spot, crossed the street and joined
himself to me. "My dear friend," he cried, embracing me fervently, "is
all well?"
"Yes," I said.
"She is appeased?"
"Absolutely."
He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and, almost crying in his joy, began
to thank me, with all the extravagance of phrase and gesture to which
men of his mean spirit are prone. Through all I heard him silently,
and with secret amusement, knowing that the end was not yet. At length
he asked me what explanation I had given.
"The only explanation possible," I answered bluntly. "I had to combat
Madame's jealousy. I did it in the only way in which it could be done:
by stating that your niece loved your son, and by imploring her good
word on their behalf."
He sprang a pace from me with a cry of rage and astonishment. "You did
that?" he screamed.
"Softly, softly, M. de Perrot," I said, in a voice which brought him
somewhat to his senses. "Certainly I did. You bade me say whatever
was necessary, and I did so. No more. If you wish, however," I added
grimly, "to explain to Madame that--"
But with a wail of lamentation he rushed from me, and in a moment was
lost in the darkness; leaving me to smile at this odd termination of an
intrigue that, but for a lad's adroitness, might have altered the
fortunes not of M. de Perrot only but of the King my master and of
France.