“For what?”
“For a diamond necklace.”
“Oh, I know what you mean—the diamonds of MM. Bœhmer and Bossange.”
“Precisely.”
“That is an old story, countess.”
“Old or new, it is a real vexation for a queen not to be able to buy what was intended for a simple favorite. Fifteen more days added to the life of Louis XV., and Jeanne Vaubernier would have had what Marie Antoinette cannot buy.”
“My dear countess, you mistake; the queen could have had it, and she refused it; the king offered them to her.”
And he recounted the history of the ship of war.
“Well,” said she, “after all, what does that prove?”
“That she did not want them, it seems to me.”