"No; we'll do better. Look, I take the two oranges ... you mark them carefully--or, better still, you stick into one of them one of these toilet pins, making up your own mind which of the two is to represent Monsieur de Beaugency, and leaving me, on that point, entirely in the dark. If Monsieur de Beaugency touches the floor, you shall marry his rival; if it happen just otherwise, you shall resign yourself to become an ambassadress." "Excellent! Now, Sire, let's see the result." The King took the two oranges and plied shuttle with them above his head. But at the third pass, the two rolled down upon the embroidered carpet, and the Marchioness broke out into a merry fit of laughter. "I foresaw as much," exclaimed his Majesty. "What a clumsy fellow I am!" "And we more puzzled than ever, Sire?" "So we are, Marchioness; but the best thing we can do, is to slice the oranges, sugar them well, and season them with a dash of West India rum. Then you can beg me to taste them, and offer me some of those preserved cherries and peaches that you put up just as nicely as my daughter Adelaide." "And Monsieur de Menneval? and Monsieur de Beaugency?" said the Marchioness, in piteous accents. "How is the question to be settled?" Louis XV. began to cogitate. "Are you quite sure," said he, "that both of them are in love with you?" "Probably so," returned she, with a little coquettish smile, sent back to her from the mirror opposite. "And their love is equally strong?" "I trust so, Sire." "And I don't believe a word of it." "Ah!" said the Marchioness, "but that is, in truth, a most terrible supposition. Besides, Sire, they are on their way hither." "Both of them?" "One after the other: the Marquis at one o'clock precisely; the Baron at two. I promised them my decision to-morrow, on condition that they would pay me a final visit to-day." As the Marchioness finished, the valet, who had announced the King, came to inform his mistress, that Monsieur de Beaugency was in the drawing-room, and solicited the favour of admission to pay his respects. "Capital!" said Louis XV., smiling as though he were eighteen; "show Monsieur de Beaugency in. Marchioness, you will receive him, and tell him the price that you set upon your hand." "And what is the price, Sire?" "You must give him the choice--either to renounce you, or to consent to send in to me his resignation of his appointments, in order that he may go and bury himself with his wife on his estate of Courlac, in Poitou, there to live the life of a country gentleman." "And then, Sire?" "You will allow him a couple of hours for reflection, and so dismiss him." "And in the end?" "The rest is my concern." And the King got up, taking his dog and his gun, and concealed himself behind a screen, drawing also a curtain, that he might be completely hidden. "What is your intention, Sire?" asked the Marchioness.