Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/100

 Comte d’Artois was playing, he put down his cards to talk to me a little, so polite, so well-bred—poor man! And there were the other three old dowagers, who were playing with him, abusing him in English, which he understood very well, because he had stopped the game. After he had resumed his cards, I was leaning over the back of a chair facing him, reflecting in one of my thoughtful moments on the uncertainty of human greatness in the picture I had then before me, when I gave one of those deep sighs, which you have heard me do sometimes, something between a sigh and a grunt, and so startled the French King, that he literally threw down his cards to stare at me. I remained perfectly motionless, pretending not to observe his action; and, as he still continued to gaze at me, some of the lookers-on construed it into a sort of admiration on his part. This enraged Lady P., and her rage was increased when, at every knock at the door, I turned my head to see who was coming, and he turned his head too; for I was expecting the royalties, and so was he: but she did not know this, and she took it into her head that the Prince and I had some understanding between us.

"I never thought any more of the matter; but, in the course of the evening, somebody brought Lady P. to me, and introduced her. 'I have longed,' said Lady P. 'for some time to make your acquaintance: