“Sire!” he repeated, sparks darting from his eyes, so violent was the rush of his anger at the untimely respect of his mistress. “You are in league with my mother.” “O God!” cried Marie, looking at the picture above her _prie-dieu_ and turning toward it to say her prayer, “grant that he comprehend me!” “Ah!” said the king suspiciously, “you have some wrong to me upon your conscience!” Then looking at her from between his arms, he plunged his eyes into hers. “I have heard some talk of the mad passion of a certain Entragues,” he went on wildly. “Ever since their grandfather, the soldier Balzac, married a viscontessa at Milan that family hold their heads too high.” Marie looked at the king with so proud an air that he was ashamed. At that instant the cries of little Charles de Valois, who had just awakened, were heard in the next room. Marie ran to the door. “Come in, Bourguignonne!” she said, taking the child from its nurse and carrying it to the king. “You are more of a child than he,” she cried, half angry, half appeased. “He is beautiful!” said Charles IX., taking his son in his arms. “I alone know how like he is to you,” said Marie; “already he has your smile and your gestures.” “So tiny as that!” said the king, laughing at her. “Oh, I know men don’t believe such things; but watch him, my Charlot, play with him. Look there! See! Am I not right?” “True!” exclaimed the king, astonished by a motion of the child which seemed the very miniature of a gesture of his own. “Ah, the pretty flower!” cried the mother. “Never shall he leave us! _He_ will never cause me grief.” The king frolicked with his son; he tossed him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, talking the foolish, unmeaning talk, the pretty, baby language invented by nurses and mothers. His voice grew child-like. At last his forehead cleared, joy returned to his saddened face, and then, as Marie saw that he had forgotten his troubles, she laid her head upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear:-- “Won’t you tell me, Charlot, why you have made me keep murderers in my house? Who are these men, and what do you mean to do with them? In short, I want to know what you were doing on the roofs. I hope there was no woman in the business?” “Then you love me as much as ever!” cried the king, meeting the clear, interrogatory glance that women know so well how to cast upon occasion. “You doubted _me_,” she replied, as a tear shone on her beautiful eyelashes. “There are women in my adventure,” said the king; “but they are sorceresses. How far had I told you?” “You were on the roofs near by--what street was it?” “Rue Saint-Honore, sweetest,” said the king, who seemed to have recovered himself. Collecting this thoughts, he began to explain to his mistress what had happened, as if to prepare her for a scene that was presently to take place in her presence.