“Really!” cried the cardinal.
“I did more than think of you; I spoke of you.”
“Spoke of me! to whom?” asked the prelate, in a voice from which all his power over himself could not banish some emotion.
“To whom should it be but to the queen?”
“Ah, dear countess, tell me about it. I interest myself so much in all that concerns you, that I should like to hear the most minute details.”
Jeanne smiled. She knew what interested the cardinal as well as he did himself. Then she related to him all the circumstances which had so fortunately made her, from a stranger, almost the friend and confidant of the queen.
Scarcely had she finished, when the servant entered to announce supper.
Jeanne invited the cardinal to accompany her.
He gave her his arm, and they went in together.
During supper, the cardinal continued to drink in long draughts of love and hope from the recitals which Jeanne kept making to him from time to time. He remarked also, with surprise, that, instead of making herself sought like a woman that knows that you have need of her, she had thrown off all her former pride, and only seemed anxious to please him. She did the honors of her table as if she had all her life mixed in the highest circles; there was neither awkwardness nor embarrassment.