“Oh! sire, sire,” she cried, laughing all the while; “if I were to be unfortunate enough to ask you for a proof of the affection you possess, how easy it would be to see that you are telling a falsehood.”
“Nay, listen to me,” said Charles, “you know my cartoons by Raphael; you know whether I care for them or not; the whole world envies me their possession, as you well know also; my father commissioned Van Dyck to purchase them. Would you like me to send them to your house this very day?”
“Oh, no!” replied the young girl; “pray keep them yourself, sire; my house is far too small to accommodate such visitors.”
“In that case you shall have Hampton Court to put the cartoons in.”
“Be less generous, sire, and learn to love a little while longer, that is all I have to ask you.”
“I shall never cease to love you; is not that enough?”
“You are smiling, sire.”
“Do you wish me to weep?”
“No; but I should like to see you a little more melancholy.”
“Thank Heaven, I have been so long enough; fourteen years of exile, poverty, and misery, I think I may well regard it as a debt discharged; besides, melancholy makes people look so plain.”
“Far from that—for look at the young Frenchman.”
“What! the Vicomte de Bragelonne? are you smitten too? By Heaven, they will all grow mad over him one after the other; but he, on the contrary, has a reason for being melancholy.”
“Why so?”
“Oh, indeed! you wish me to betray state secrets, do you?”
“If I wish it, you must do so, for you told me you were quite ready to do everything I wished.”
“Well, then, he is bored in his own country. Does that satisfy you?”
“Bored?”
“Yes, a proof that he is a simpleton; I allow him to fall in love with Miss Mary Grafton, and he feels bored. Can you believe it?”
“Very good; it seems, then, that if you were to find Miss Lucy Stewart indifferent to you, you would console yourself by falling in love with Miss Mary Grafton.”
“I don’t say that; in the first place, you know that Mary Grafton does not care for me; besides, a man can only console himself for a lost affection by the discovery of a new one. Again, however, I repeat, the question is not of myself, but of that young man. One might almost be tempted to call the girl he has left behind him a Helen—a Helen before the little ceremony she went through with Paris, of course.”
“He has left someone, then?”
“That is to say, someone has left him.”
“Poor fellow! so much the worse!”
“Why do you mean by ‘so much the worse’?”
“Why not? why did he leave?”
“Do you think it was of his own wish or will that he left?”
“Was he obliged to leave, then?”
“He left Paris under orders, my dear Stewart; and prepare to be surprised—by express orders of the king.”
“Ah! I begin to see, now.”
“At least say nothing at all about it.”
“You know very well that I am just as discreet as anybody else. And so the king sent him away?”
“Yes.”
“And during his absence he takes his sweetheart from him?”
“Yes; and, will you believe it? the silly fellow, instead of thanking the king, is making himself miserable.”
“What! thank the king for depriving him of the woman he loves! Really, sire, yours is a most ungallant speech.”
“But, pray understand me. If she whom the king had run off with was either a Miss Grafton or a Miss Stewart, I should be of his opinion; nay, I should even think him not half wretched enough; but she is a little, thin, lame thing. Deuce take such fidelity as that! Surely, one can hardly understand how a man can refuse a girl who is rich for one who is poverty itself—a girl who loves him for one who deceives and betrays him.”
“Do you think that Mary seriously wishes to please the vicomte, sire?”
“I do, indeed.”
“Very good! the vicomte will settle down in England, for Mary has a clear head, and when she fixes her mind upon anything, she does so thoroughly.”
“Take care, my dear Miss Stewart; if the vicomte has any idea of adopting our country, he has not long to do so, for it was only the day before yesterday that he again asked me for permission to leave.”
“Which you refused him, I suppose?”
“I should think so, indeed; my royal brother is far too anxious for his absence; and, for myself, my amour propre is enlisted on his side, for I will never have it said that I had held out as a bait to this young man the noblest and gentlest creature in England—”
“You are very gallant, sire,” said Miss Stewart, with a pretty pout.
“I do not allude to Miss Stewart, for she is worthy of a king’s devotion; and since she has captivated me I trust that no one else will be caught by her; I say, therefore, finally, that the attention I have shown this young man will not have been thrown away; he will stay with us here, he will marry here, or I am very much mistaken.”
“And I hope that when he is once married and settled, instead of being angry with Your Majesty, he will be grateful to you, for everyone tries his utmost to please him; even the Duke of Buckingham, whose brilliancy, which is incredible, seems to pale before that of this young Frenchman.”
“Including Miss Stewart even, who calls him the
