“Why has your majesty for so long only deigned to communicate with me through another? If you have any reason to hate me, why not explain it?”
“I do not know what you mean. I do not hate you; but that is not, I think, the subject of our interview. I wish to hear all about this unlucky necklace; but first, where is Madame de la Motte?”
“I was about to ask your majesty the same question.”
“Really, monsieur, if any one knows, I think it ought to be you.”
“I, madame! why?”
“Oh! I do not wish to receive your confessions about her, but I wish to speak to her, and have sent for her ten times without receiving any answer.”
“And I, madame, am astonished at her disappearance, for I also sent to ask her to come, and, like your majesty, received no answer.”
“Then let us leave her, monsieur, and speak of ourselves.”
“Oh no, madame; let us speak of her first, for a few words of your majesty’s gave me a painful suspicion; it seemed to me that your majesty reproached me with my assiduities to her.”
“I have not reproached you at all, sir.”