"You are in error, countess; the stranger is Count Fenix, who arrived but yesterday."
"How hard he looks at me!"
"Nay, how tenderly everybody is looking at you!"
"Look, he is bowing to me!"
"Everybody is doing that, if they have not done so."
A prey to extraordinary emotion, the lady did not heed the duke's compliments, and, with her sight riveted on the stranger who captivated her attention, she quitted Richelieu, in spite of herself, to move toward the foreigner. The king was watching her and perceived the movement. He thought she wanted him, and approached her, as he had quite long enough stood aloof out of regard for the social restrictions. But the countess was so engrossed that her mind would not be diverted.
"Sire, who is that Prussian officer, now turning away from Prince Guemenee to look this way?"
"The stout figure with the square face enframed in a golden collar?—accredited from my cousin of Prussia—some philosopher of his stamp. I am glad that German philosophy celebrates the triumph of King Petticoat the Third, as they nickname the Louis for their devotion to the sex of which you are the brightest gem. His title is Count Fenix," added the sovereign reflecting.
"It is he," thought Countess Dubarry, but as she kept silence the king proceeded, raising his voice: