Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/279

Rh would cure a jealous man, certainly; but she might possibly make a woman jealous, too."

"Henrietta," exclaimed Louis, "you fill my heart with joy. Yes, yes; Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente is far too beautiful to serve as a cloak."

"A king's cloak ought to be beautiful."

"Do you advise me to do it, then?" inquired Louis.

"I! what should I say, sire, except that to give such an advice would be to supply arms against myself. It would be folly or pride to advise you to take, for the heroine of an assumed affection, a woman more beautiful than the one for whom you pretend to feel real regard."

The king tried to take madame's hand in his own; his eyes sought hers; and then he murmured a few words so full of tenderness, but pronounced in so low a tone, that the historian, who ought to hear everything, could not hear them. Then, speaking aloud, he said:

"Do you, yourself, choose for me the one who is to cure our jealous friend. To her, then, all my devotion, all my attention, all the time that I can spare from my occupations, shall be devoted. For her shall be the flower that I may pluck for you, the fond thoughts with which you have inspired me. Toward her, the glance that I dare not bestow upon you, and which ought to be able to arouse you from your indifference. But be careful in your selection, lest, in offering her the rose which I may have plucked I should find myself conquered by yourself; and lest my looks, my hand, my lips, should not turn immediately toward you, even were the whole world to guess my secret."

While these words escaped from the king's lips, in a stream of wild affection, madame blushed, breathless, happy, proud, almost intoxicated with delight. She could find nothing to say in reply; her pride and her thirst for homage were satisfied.

"I shall fail," she said, raising her beautiful black eyes, "but not as you beg me, for all this incense which you wish to burn on the altar of another divinity. Ah! sire, I, too, shall be jealous of it, and want it to be restored to me, and would not wish that a particle of it should be lost in the way. Therefore, sire, with your royal permission, I will choose one who shall appear to me the least likely to distract your attention, and who will leave my image pure and unsullied in your heart."

"Happily for me," said the king, "your heart is not hard