Brother and sister faced each other, strangely alike now in their anger: nostrils quivering over fierce, quick breaths, black eyes flashing into black eyes. It was the Vidame who could scarce credit his ears. Here was he, the messenger of the King, come to open before one whose devouring ambition, he believed, if anything, exceeded his own, a perspective of boundless possibilities—and he was thus received! He sat before her in the small parlour allotted to her in Whitehall,—an exiguous rounded corner room overlooking the river,—his mouth opened in astonishment, deserted for the nonce by all his pert airs of assurance. “Nay, Jeanne,” he said at length, “keep this pretty scene for his Majesty, if you will; or rather,” he amended, restored by the sound of his own glib speech, “take my advice, and hold your fits of virtue as cured and over, once for all, for they say that King Charles becomes very easily _ennuyé_. For, with me, whom do you expect to take in?” Whereupon, at a tangent, Madame de Mantes flew into a new rage. “And it is this little man who is my brother!” she cried, clasping her hands and surveying Enguerrand from head to foot, with flashing fury; “_this_ is the child who knelt beside me at our mother’s knee!” She thrust out a lip of utter contempt: “Take thee in? Thou—thou little withered fruit … a stone inside, hard skin without; what art thou to me?” “What am I to thee—Jeanne? To-day,” he cried, “the stepping-stone to thy fortune, if thou wilt only see it! Now listen to me.” But even as he spoke, of a sudden his anger cooled before the expression of her face. What if she was in earnest, what of his fortunes then? It was no time to quarrel. He caught his sister round the waist and advanced his lips toward the smooth cheek. But a masterly slap met the endearment. “I’ll be no stepping-stone to you, nor creature of the English King,” Jeanne announced, half laughing, half crying. “There’s better in London, Master Enguerrand.” He looked at her with wicked eyes, his face whiter than usual against the three scarlet stripes. “You’ve had a visit this morning before me!” he cried suddenly; then, with a diabolic flash of intuition, he recalled the long, soft looks she had cast upon Lord Rockhurst. “A visit?” said the Frenchwoman, swinging herself upon her heel. “Why, yes, that might well be.” She had a private smile, as to the memory of something singularly pleasant. “I warrant me that it is your purpose to visit before long that interesting pile they call the Tower of London. Have a care, _ma sœur_,” and his trembling lips could scarce articulate the sneer,—had he not hated that man at very first sight,—“it is there, they say, that heads are lost in England!” “Out of my room!” she ordered.