Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/274

262 "Perfectly mad with jealousy! Monsieur's Jealousy arises from hers; she was weeping and complaining to my mother, and was reproaching us for those bathing-parties, which have made me so happy."

"And me, too," answered madame, by a look.

"When, suddenly," continued the king, "Monsieur, who was listening, heard the word banos, which the queen pronounced with some degree of bitterness, that awakened his attention; he entered the room, looking quite wild, broke into the conversation, and began to quarrel with my mother so bitterly that she was obliged to leave him; so that, while you have a jealous husband to deal with, I shall have perpetually present before me a specter of jealousy with swollen eyes, a cadaverous face, and sinister looks."

"Poor king!" murmured madame, as she lightly touched the king's hand. He retained her hand in his, and in order to press it without exciting suspicion in the spectators, who were not so much taken up with the butterflies that they could not occupy themselves about other matters, and who perceived clearly enough that there was some mystery in the king's and madame's conversation, Louis placed the dying butterfly before his sister-in-law, and both bent over it as if to count the thousand eyes of its wings, or the particles of golden dust which covered it. Neither of them spoke; however, their hair mingled, their breath united, and their hands feverishly throbbed in each other's grasp. Five minutes passed by in this manner.

The two young people remained for a moment with their heads bent down, bowed, as it were, beneath the double thought of the love which was springing up in their hearts, and which gives birth to so many happy fancies in the imaginations of twenty years of age. Mme. Henrietta gave a side-glance from time to time at the king. Hers was one of those finely organized natures capable of looking inwardly at itself as well as others at the same moment. She perceived Love lying at the bottom of Louis' heart, as a skillful diver sees a pearl at the bottom of the sea. She knew Louis was hesitating, if not in doubt, and that his indolent or timid heart required aid and encouragement.