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Rh "Far from it; as you are my son, I owe you a mother's indulgence."

"Oh, say what you think; you owe me as much indulgence as a madman deserves."

"Do not exaggerate, Philip, and take care how you represent your wife to me as a woman of a depraved mind "

"But facts, mother, facts!"

"Well, I am listening."

"This morning, at ten o'clock, they were playing music in madame's apartments."

"No harm in that, surely."

"Monsieur de Guiche was talking with her alone — Ah! I forgot to tell you that during the last ten days he has never left her side."

"If they were doing any harm they would hide themselves."

"Very good," exclaimed the duke. "I expected you to say that. Pray do not forget what you have just said. This morning I took them by surprise, and showed my dissatisfaction in a very marked manner."

"Rely upon it, that is quite sufficient; it was, perhaps, even a little too much. These young women easily take offense. To reproach them for an error they have not committed is, sometimes, almost the same as telling them they might do it."

"Very good, very good; but wait a minute. Do not forget what you have Just this minute said, that this morning's lesson ought to have been sufficient, and that if they had been doing what was wrong they would have concealed themselves."

"Yes, I said so."

"Well, just now, repenting of my hastiness of this morning, and knowing that De Guiche was sulking in his own apartments, I went to pay madame a visit. Can you guess what, or whom, I found there? Another set of musicians; more dancing, and De Guiche himself — he was concealed there."

Anne of Austria frowned. "It was imprudent," she said. "What did madame say?"

"Nothing."

"And De Guiche?"

"As much — oh, no! he muttered some impertinent remark or another."

"Well, what is your opinion, Philip?"