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150 anxious; I know how vain is the delusion she is now cherishing."

"Yet if Louis did love her—"

"Louis," interrupted the Duchesse, "love her!"—it is not in him to love aught but himself. His mother is well aware that she may trust him, or Marie Mancini would have been, ere this, in a convent. The queen encourages his intimacy with us—rejoices even at his preference; for we amuse him, and are less dangerous than any that might carry him away from her immediate care. But she relies, and safely, upon the selfishness of Louis. Let Marie cause him trouble, annoyance, or interfere with the slightest of his interests, and her hope—her happiness—would be sacrificed as things of course. It would never ever enter his mind that they could be consulted."

"But Marie—so shrewd, so penetrating; is it possible that she does not perceive this?"

"You have not lived long enough among us to know the intoxication of vanity. Marie has allowed herself to dwell on one brilliant object till her eyesight is dazzled."

"But cannot you advise—cannot you warn her?"

"Alas, Francesca! we are not now in the pine groves, where we once talked so freely. There