When Jacinthe ushered Gabriel into the apartment in the Louvre occupied by Diane de Castro as the king's legitimatized daughter, she, in the pure and honest outpouring of her heart, rushed to meet her well-beloved without undertaking to dissemble her joy. She would not have refused to offer her brow to be kissed; but he contented himself with pressing her hand. "Here you are at last, Gabriel!" said she. "How impatiently I have been awaiting you, dear! Lately I have not seemed to know whither to turn the full stream of happiness that I feel within me. I talk and laugh when I am all alone, and I am crazy with joy! But here you are, Gabriel, and we may at least have a happy hour together! But what is the matter, my love? You seem cold and serious and almost sad. Is it with such a solemn face and such cool reserve that you show your love for me, and your gratitude to God and my father?" "To your father? Yes, let us speak of your father, Diane. As for this seriousness at which you wonder, it is my way to receive good fortune with a grave face; for I distrust her gifts, in the first place, having been unused to them heretofore, and my experience has been that she only too often hides a sorrow under the mask of a favor. "I didn't know that you were such a philosopher, nor so unlucky, Gabriel!" replied the maiden, half in fun and half in anger. "But, come! you were saying that you wished to talk about the king; and I am very glad. How kind and generous he is, Gabriel!" "Yes, Diane; and he loves you dearly, doesn't he?" "With an infinite tenderness and gentleness, Gabriel." "No doubt," muttered Vicomte d'Exmès, "for he may very well believe, poor dupe, that she is his child! Only one thing surprises me," he continued aloud; "and that is, how the king, who must have felt in his heart that he should love you thus dearly, could have allowed twelve years to elapse without ever seeing you or knowing you, and have left you at Vimoutiers, lost, to all intents and purposes. Have you never asked him, Diane, for an explanation of such strange indifference? Such utter forgetfulness, do you know, seems hardly consistent with the kind feeling that he seems to have for you now." "Oh," said Diane, "it was not he who forgot me,--poor Papa!" "But who was it, then?" "Who? Why, Madame Diane de Poitiers, to be sure! I don't know if I ought to say my mother." "And why did she make up her mind to abandon you thus, Diane? Ought she not to have been glad and proud, and to have glorified herself in the king's sight for having given birth to you, and having thus acquired one claim the more to his affection? What had she to fear? Her husband was dead; and her father--"