Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/276

264 "How cruel you are!"

"Take care, sire; some one is coming."

The king looked all round him, and said:

"No, there is no one," and then continued: "Come, Henrietta, instead of trying to contend against Monsieur's jealousy by a departure which would kill me — " Henrietta slightly shrugged her shoulders like a woman unconvinced — "yes," repeated Louis, "which would kill me, I say — instead of fixing your mind on this departure, does not your imagination — or, rather, does not your heart — suggest some expedient?"

"What is it you wish my heart to suggest?"

"Tell me, how can one prove to another that it is wrong to be jealous?"

"In the first place, sire, by giving no motive for jealousy; in other words, in loving no one but the one in question."

"Oh! I expected better than that."

"What did you expect?"

"That you would simply tell me that jealous people are pacified by concealing the affection which is entertained for the object of their jealousy."

"Dissimulation is difficult, sire."

"Yet it is only by means of conquering difficulties that any happiness is attained. As far as I am concerned, I swear I will give the lie to those who are jealous of me by pretending to treat you like any other woman."

"A bad, as well as an unsafe, means," said the young princess, shaking her pretty head.

"You seem to think everything bad, dear Henrietta," said Louis discontentedly. "You destroy everything I propose. Suggest, at least, something else in its stead. Come, try and think. I trust implicitly to a woman's invention. Do you invent in your turn."

"Well, sire, I have hit upon something. Will you listen to it?"

"Can you ask me? You speak of a matter of life or death to me, and then ask if I will listen."

"Well, I judge of it by my own case. If my husband intended to put me on the wrong scent with regard to another woman, one thing would reassure me more than anything else."

"What would that be?"

"In the first place, to see that he never took any notice of the woman in question."

"Exactly, That is precisely what I said just now."