The queen was expecting the return of Madame de Misery. The doctor entered with his accustomed familiarity. “Madame,” he said, “the patient in whom your majesty and the king are interested is as well as any one can be who has a fever.”
“Is it a slight wound?” asked the queen.
“Slight or not, he is in a fever.”
“Poor fellow!—a bad fever?”
“Terrible!”
“You frighten me; dear doctor; you, who are generally so cheering. Besides, you look about you, as though you had a secret to tell.”
“So I have.”
“About the fever?”
“Yes.”
“To tell me?”