The king drew back in surprise.
“I mean,” continued the queen in the same cold manner, “that I only returned at six o’clock this morning.”
“Madame!”
“And that, but for the kindness of M. le Comte d’Artois, who gave me an asylum, and lodged me out of pity in one of his houses, I should have been left all night at the door of the château like a beggar.”
“Ah! you had not then returned?” said the king, gloomily; “then I was right.”
“Sire, you have not behaved towards me as a gentleman should.”
“In what, madame?”
“In this—that if you wish to know whether I return late or early, you have no need to close the gates, with orders not to open them, but simply to come to me and ask, ‘Madame, at what time did you return?’ You have no more reason to doubt, sire. Your spies have been deceived, your precautions nullified, and your suspicions dissipated. I saw you ashamed of the part you had played, and I might have continued to triumph in my victory, but I think your proceedings shameful for a king, and unworthy of a gentleman; and I would not refuse myself the satisfaction of telling you so.
“It is useless, sire,” she continued, seeing the king about to speak; “nothing can excuse your conduct towards me.”
“On the contrary, madame,” replied he, “nothing is more easy. Not a single person in the château suspected that you had not already returned; therefore no one could think that my orders referred to you. Probably they were attributed to the dissipations of M. le Comte d’Artois—for that I care nothing. Therefore, madame, appearances were saved, as far as you were concerned. I wished simply to give you a secret lesson, from which the amount of irritation you show leads me to hope you will profit. Therefore, I still think I was in the right, and do not repent what I have done.”