“Well, sir,” she inquired, “What is Your Majesty’s opinion of these three portraits?”
The king, who wished to relieve Saint-Aignan’s embarrassment without compromising himself, replied, “Why, Amaryllis, in my opinion, is beautiful.”
“For my part,” said Monsieur, “I prefer Phyllis; she is a capital girl, or rather a good-sort-of-fellow of a nymph.”
A gentle laugh followed, and this time the looks were so direct, that Montalais felt herself blushing almost scarlet.
“Well,” resumed Madame, “what were those shepherdesses saying to each other?”
Saint-Aignan, however, whose vanity had been wounded, did not feel himself in a position to sustain an attack of new and refreshed troops, and merely said, “Madame, the shepherdesses were confiding to one another their little preferences.”
“Nay, nay! Monsieur de Saint-Aignan, you are a perfect stream of pastoral poesy,” said Madame, with an amiable smile, which somewhat comforted the narrator.
“They confessed that love is a mighty peril, but that the absence of love is the heart’s sentence of death.”
“What was the conclusion they came to?” inquired Madame.
“They came to the conclusion that love was necessary.”
“Very good! Did they lay down any conditions?”
“That of choice, simply,” said Saint-Aignan. “I ought even to add—remember it is the Dryad who is speaking—that one of the shepherdesses, Amaryllis, I believe, was completely opposed to the necessity of loving, and yet she did not positively deny that she had allowed the image of a certain shepherd to take refuge in her heart.”
“Was it Amyntas or Tyrcis?”
“Amyntas, Madame,” said Saint-Aignan, modestly. “But Galatea, the gentle and soft-eyed Galatea, immediately replied, that neither Amyntas, nor Alphesiboeus, nor Tityrus, nor indeed any of the handsomest shepherds of the country, were to be compared to Tyrcis; that Tyrcis was as superior to all other men, as the oak to all other trees, as the lily in its majesty to all other flowers. She drew even such a portrait of Tyrcis that Tyrcis himself, who was listening, must have felt truly flattered at it, notwithstanding his rank as a shepherd. Thus Tyrcis and Amyntas had been distinguished by Phyllis and Galatea; and thus had the secrets of two hearts revealed beneath the shades of evening, and amid the recesses of the woods. Such, Madame, is what the Dryad related to me; she who knows all that takes place in the hollows of oaks and grassy dells; she who knows the loves of the birds, and all they wish to convey by their songs; she who understands, in fact, the language of the wind among the branches, the humming of the insect with its gold and emerald wings in the corolla of the wildflowers; it was she who related the particulars to me, and I have repeated them.”
“And now you have finished, Monsieur de Saint-Aignan, have you not?” said Madame, with a smile that made the king tremble.
“Quite finished,” replied Saint-Aignan, “and but too happy if I have been able to amuse Your Royal Highness for a few moments.”
“Moments which have been too brief,” replied the princess; “for you have related most admirably all you know; but, my dear Monsieur de Saint-Aignan, you have been unfortunate enough to obtain your information from one Dryad only, I believe?”
“Yes, Madame, only from one, I confess.”
“The fact was, that you passed by a little Naiad, who pretended to know nothing at all, and yet knew a great deal more than your Dryad, my dear comte.”
“A Naiad!” repeated several voices, who began to suspect that the story had a continuation.
“Of course close beside the oak you are speaking of, which, if I am not mistaken, is called the royal oak—is it not so, Monsieur de Saint-Aignan?”
Saint-Aignan and the king exchanged glances.
“Yes, Madame,” the former replied.
“Well, close beside the oak there is a pretty little spring, which runs murmuringly over the pebbles, between banks of forget-me-nots and daffodils.”
“I believe you are correct,” said the king, with some uneasiness, and listening with some anxiety to his sister-in-law’s narrative.
“Oh! there is one, I can assure you,” said Madame; “and the proof of it is, that the Naiad who resides in that little stream stopped me as I was about to cross.”
“Ah?” said Saint-Aignan.
“Yes, indeed,” continued the princess, “and she did so in order to communicate to me many particulars Monsieur de Saint-Aignan has omitted in his recital.”
“Pray relate them yourself, then,” said Monsieur, “you can relate stories in such a charming manner.” The princess bowed at the conjugal compliment paid her.
“I do not possess the poetical powers of the comte, nor his ability to bring to light the smallest details.”
“You will not be listened to with less interest on that account,” said the king, who already perceived that something hostile was intended in his sister-in-law’s story.
“I speak, too,” continued Madame, “in the name of that poor little Naiad, who is indeed the most charming creature I ever met. Moreover, she laughed so heartily while she was telling me her story, that, in pursuance of that medical axiom that laughter is the finest physic in the world, I ask permission to laugh a little myself when I recollect her words.”
The king and Saint-Aignan, who noticed spreading over many of the faces present a distant and prophetic ripple of the laughter Madame announced, finished by looking at each other, as if asking themselves whether there was not some little conspiracy concealed beneath these words. But Madame was determined to turn the knife in the wound over and over again; she therefore resumed with the air of the most perfect candor, in other words, with the most dangerous of all her airs: “Well, then, I passed that way,” she said, “and as I found beneath my steps many fresh flowers newly blown, no doubt Phyllis, Amaryllis, Galatea, and all your shepherdesses had passed the same way before me.”
The king bit his lips,
