"In that case, it is impossible."
"How so?"
"Du Bouchage cannot go away just now."
The king looked astonished. "What do you mean?" said he.
"Sire," said Joyeuse quietly, "it is the simplest thing possible. Du Bouchage is in love, but he had carried on his negotiations badly, and everything was going wrong; the poor boy was growing thinner and thinner."
"Indeed," said the king, "I have remarked it."
"And he had become sad, mordieu! as if he had lived in your majesty's court."
A kind of grunt, proceeding from the corner of the room interrupted Joyeuse, who looked round astonished.
"It is nothing, Joyeuse," said the king, laughing, "only a dog asleep on the footstool. You say, then, that Du Bouchage grew sad?—"
"Sad as death, sire. It seems he has met with some woman of an extraordinary disposition. However, one sometimes succeeds as well with this sort of women as with others, if you only set the right way to work."