The sister looked at the brother as much as to say: "Was I not right to keep him?" and he nodded emphatically.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
THE KING'S FAVORITE.
In the apartments of Princess Adelaide, daughter of King Louis X., he had housed the Countess Jeanne Dubarry, his favorite since a year, not without studying the effect it would have on the realm. The jolly, mirthful, devil-may-care mad-cap had transformed the silent palace into a monkey-house, where any one was tolerated who kept the fun alive.
At about nine in the morning, the hour of her reception, Jeanne Vaubernier, to give her her true name, stepped out of her couch, wrapped in an embroidered gauze gown which allowed a glimpse through the floating lace of her alabaster arms. This seductive statue, awakening more and more, drew a lace mantle over her shoulders and held out her little foot for a slipper which, with its jewels, would enrich a woodcutter in her native woods had he found it.
"Any news of Chon, or the Viscount Jean?" she asked at once of her chambermaid.
"None, and no letters, my lady."
"What a bore to be kept waiting!" pouted the royal pet, with a pretty wry face. "Will they never invent a method of corresponding a hundred miles apart? Faith, I pity anybody I visit with my vexation this day. But I suppose that, as this star the dauphiness is coming, I, the poor glowworm, will be left alone. Who is waiting, tell me?"
"Duke Daiguillon, Prince Soubise, Count Sartines and President Maupeou."
"But the Duke of Richelieu?"