A beautiful woman—if a coarse nature ever can give beauty to faultless features—sat in one of those charming little saloons which made the Grand Trianon the gayest and most popular palace in France. She was not alone—such women usually avoid solitude; but the person who stood before her that day was so unlike any of the venal courtiers that usually surrounded her, that his presence there, in itself, was remarkable. He was a tall, spare man, a little under thirty. His hair was flaxen, soft, and of that exceeding fineness, which is seldom found except upon the head of an infant. His eyes were of a keen, variable gray, sometimes pale in their color, sometimes almost black. The face was one of remarkable refinement—exquisitely cut and perfect in the contour as the best dreams of a sculptor; the complexion pure, changeable, delicate, and fair. The least emotion brought a faint color over the forehead, which was threaded about the temples with a network of azure veins. Never was contrast more perfect than that which existed between this man and the woman, in whose presence he was not allowed to sit. His air, his gestures, the very bend of his person, was a protest of refinement against the coarseness which, to his sensitive nature, made her wonderful beauty repulsive. This woman was questioning him imperiously. She wanted a favor, yet had not the grace to ask it gently. “They tell me that you have this power—then why hesitate? When a subject has the ability to serve his king, it is treason to waver.” “But, madam, I may not have the power. Our Saviour himself carried healing to the poor—never to kings; besides, it is given to man once to die. That is a law which human art cannot reach, and divine power has limited. The King of France is an old man, and, like the most humble of us, his days are numbered.” The woman started up in sudden terror. “Is this prophecy, or is it rank treason?” she said. “Madame, it is the simple truth. No art that I ever heard of can make an old man young; the waters of eternal youth are fabulous. Great power lies in human knowledge, but not such as you would evoke. Were it otherwise——” The man paused, and a faint color stained the pure whiteness of his forehead. The countess seated herself. A glow of angry impatience had succeeded to her sudden panic, and she seized upon his hesitation as a wild animal snatches at food. “Well, were it otherwise, what then?” “Then it would be a consideration for any wise man, whether, in continuing the king’s life beyond that period ordained of God, wrong might not be done to the people of France.” “Wrong done to the people of France!” cried the woman, grasping the arm of her gilded chair with angry vehemence; “the people of France! What are they but hounds, born to do the bidding of the king.” “Forgive me, Madame la Countess; but it is said——”