He laughed in what was almost a convulsion of rage. To what post, to what favours, might he not have aspired, with such a beginning! Meanwhile it is always the messenger of unwelcome news who bears the blame. _Malédiction!_ His hand on the door-latch, he sent his last shaft with deadly purport to wound:— “O Jeanne, and I had never thought thee the woman to submit to a rival! Call to mind, _ma toute belle_, milord’s smile as he gazed at the face in the locket.” Madame de Mantes heard the furious laughter echo down the passage as the door closed. She stood in the middle of her little room nibbling at her finger. ’Twas true! He had smiled at the locket, and with what tenderness! Ah, that was very different from the mocking twist of the lips with which he had wittily courted her only an hour ago. How! a king was to be sacrificed to him, and the man dared to haggle over the full surrender of his heart! ’Twould be monstrous! * * * * * “Ah, there’s my Little Satan,” said the King. But his long, gloomy face relaxed into no mirth: he had had a tedious morning, and of all things Charles could least endure tedium. The lady who had been first in favour so long that her chain had become well-nigh as heavy as that of matrimony itself, had made him such a scene as his own good and faithful queen would never have permitted herself to make. And another lady, whom for some time the volatile royal fancy had pursued in vain, had shown herself more hopelessly obdurate than usual. Between chiding Palmer and elusive Stewart, Charles was as near ill-humour as his easy temper would allow—and he was therefore, characteristically, ready for any diversion to this unwonted hue of his sky. The sight of the little Vidame’s pallid, handsome face at the end of the audience room put him in mind at once of the whim he had indulged in overnight for the lady of the guitar; a linnet that trilled, a little quail for roundness and compactness. For an _entremet_, according to the new-fangled French jargon of banqueting, Madame de Mantes was certainly not a dish to be despised; and, to add spice to it, there was that presumptuous fellow’s wager. Actually a wager!—Those arrears of pay had been forced upon the royal memory altogether too often of late. So, with a gesture, Charles waved his usual circle aside; and those that formed it saw, with astonishment and the virulent spite of the courtier, the King withdraw with the unknown French boy into the embrasure of the windows overlooking the Thames. Some bethought themselves that his Majesty had noticed the creature already on the previous night; and whispers began to circulate.