Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/225

Rh to look at, De Guiche returned to madame's cabinet. Monsieur was left quite to himself during all the time he devoted to dressing and decorating himself; he felt that he was the most miserable of men, and again inquired whether there was any news of the chevalier, in reply to which he was told that no one knew where the chevalier was to be found. Monsieur, hardly knowing in what direction to inflict his weariness, went to madame's apartments dressed in his morning-gown. He found a large assemblage of people there, laughing and whispering in every part of the room; at one end, a group of women around one of the courtiers talking together amid smothered bursts of laughter; at the other end, Manicamp and Malicorne were being pillaged by Montalais and Mlle. de Tonnay-Charente, while two others were standing by, laughing. In another part were madame, seated upon some cushions on the floor, and De Guiche, on his knees beside her, spreading out a handful of pearls and precious stones, while the princess, with her white and slender finger, pointed out such among them as pleased her the most. Again, in another corner of the room, a guitar-player was playing some of the Spanish sequedillas, to which madame had taken the greatest fancy ever since she had heard them sung by the young queen with a melancholy expression of voice. But the songs which the Spanish princess had sung with tears in her eyes the young English woman was humming with a smile which displayed her beautiful pearl-like teeth. The cabinet presented, in fact, the most perfect representation of unrestrained pleasure and amusement. As he entered Monsieur was struck at beholding so many persons enjoying themselves without him. He was so jealous at the sight that he could not resist saying, like a child, "What! you are amusing yourselves here, while I am sick and tired of being alone!"

The sound of his voice was like a clap of thunder which interrupts the warbling of birds under the leafy covert of the trees. A dead silence ensued. De Guiche was on his feet in a moment. Malicorne tried to hide himself behind Montalais' dress. Manicamp stood bolt upright, and assumed a very ceremonious demeanor. The guitar-player thrust his guitar under a table, covering it with a piece of carpet to conceal it from the prince's observation. Madame was the only one who did not move, and, smiling at her husband, said, "Is not this the hour you usually devote to your toilet?"