"I did not." "Nor the King?" "The King, Madame, cannot have seen her this morning," I said, "because he is here and she is in Brussels." "You persist in that?" "Certainly!" I said. "Besides, madame," I continued, "I have no doubt that the King has given you his word--" "His word is good for everyone but his wife!" she answered bitterly. "And for yours, M. le Duc, I will show you what it is worth. Mademoiselle, call--" "Nay, madame!" I said, interrupting her with spirit, "if you are going to call your household to contradict me--" "But I am not!" she cried in a voice of triumph that, for the moment, disconcerted me. "Mademoiselle, send to M. de Bassompierre's lodgings, and bid him come to me!" The King whistled softly, while I, who knew Bassompierre to be devoted to him, and to be, in spite of the levity to which his endless gallantries bore witness, a man of sense and judgment, prepared myself for a serious struggle; judging that we were in the meshes of an intrigue, wherein it was impossible to say whether the Queen figured as actor or dupe. The passion she evinced as she walked to and fro with clenched hands, or turned now and again to dart a fiery glance at the Cordovan curtain that hid the door, was so natural to her character that I found myself leaning to the latter supposition. Still, in grave doubt what part Bassompierre was to play, I looked for his coming as anxiously as anyone. And probably the King shared this feeling; but he affected indifference, and continued to sit over the fire with an air of mingled scorn and peevishness. At length Bassompierre entered, and, seeing the King, advanced with an open brow that persuaded me, at least, of his innocence. Attacked on the instant, however, by the Queen, and taken by surprise, as it were, between two fires--though the King kept silence, and merely shrugged his shoulders--his countenance fell. He was at that time one of the handsomest gallants about the Court, thirty years old, and the darling of women; but at this his APLOMB failed him, and with it my heart sank also. "Answer, sir! answer!" the Queen cried. "And without subterfuge! Who was it, sir, whom you saw come from the forest this morning?" "Madame?" "In one word!" "If your Majesty will--" "I will permit you to answer," the Queen exclaimed. "I saw his Majesty return," he faltered--"and M. de Sully." "Before them! before them!" "I may have been mistaken." "Pooh, man!" the Queen cried with biting contempt. "You have told it to half-a-dozen. Discretion comes a little late." "Well, if you will, madame," he said, striving to assert himself, but cutting a poor figure, "I fancied that I saw Madame de Conde--" "Come out of the wood ten minutes before the King?" "It may have been twenty," he muttered. But the Queen cared no more for him. She turned, looking superb in her wrath, to the King. "Now, sir!" she said. "Am I to bear this?"