"Do you return to the Louvre with us, Henriette?" inquired the queen mother of the lovely duchess.
Marguerite touched her friend on the elbow, and she, understanding the sign, replied:
"No, madame, unless your majesty desire it; for I have business in the city with her majesty the Queen of Navarre."
"And what are you going to do together?" inquired Catharine.
"To see some very rare and curious Greek books found at an old Protestant pastor's, and which have been taken to the Tower of Saint Jacques la Boucherie," replied Marguerite.
"You would do much better to see the last Huguenots flung into the Seine from the top of the Pont des Meuniers," said Charles IX.; "that is the place for all good Frenchmen."
"We will go, if it be your Majesty's desire," replied the Duchesse de Nevers.
Catharine cast a look of distrust on the two young women. Marguerite, on the watch, remarked it, and turning round uneasily, looked about her.
This assumed or real anxiety did not escape Catharine.
"What are you looking for?"