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 102 THE MAN IN" THE IROI^ MASK.

As soon, however, as his hunger was appeased, the king became dull and gloomy again; the more so in proportion to the satisfaction he fancied he had manifested, and par- ticularly on account of the deferential manner which his courtiers had shown toward Fouquet. D^Artagnan, who eat a good deal and drank but little, without allowing it to be noticed, did not lose a single opportunity, but made a great number of observations which he turned to good profit.

When the supper was finished the king expressed a wish not to lose the promenade. The park was illuminated; the moon, too, as if she had placed herself at the orders of the lord of Vaux, silvered the trees and lake with her bright, phosphoric light. The air was soft and balmy; the graveled walks through the thickly set avenues yielded luxuriously to the feet. The fete was complete in every respect, for the king, having met La Valliere in one of the winding paths of the wood, was able to press her by the hand and say, *^I love you," without any one overhearing him except M. d'Artagnan, who followed, and M. Fouquet, who pre- ceded him.

The night of magical enchantments stole on. The king, having requested to be shown his room, there was imme- diately a movement in every direction. The queens passed to their own apartments, accompanied by the music of theorbos and lutes; the king found his musketeers await- ing him on the grand flight of steps, for M. Fouquet had brought them on from Melun, and had invited them to supper. D'Artagnan's suspicions at once disappeared. He was weary, he had supped well, and wished, for once in his life, thoroughly to enjoy 2i,fete given by a man who was in every sense of the word a king.

^'Monsieur Fouquet,'^ he said, '^is the man for me."

The king was conducted with the greatest ceremony to the chamber of Morpheus, of which we owe some slight description to our readers. It was the handsomest and the largest in the palace. Lebrun had painted on the vaulted ceiling the happy, as well as disagreeable, dreams with which Morpheus affects kings as well as other men. Every- thing that sleep gives birth to that is lovely, its perfumes, its flowers and nectar, the wild voluptuousness or deep re- pose of the senses, had the painter enriched with his frescoes. It was a composition as soft and pleasing in one part as dark and gloomy and terrible in another. The poisoned chalice, the glittering dagger suspended over the head of the sleeper; wizards and phantoms with hideous masks, those half-dim

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