“Therefore you might think,” replied she, “that he had some favor to ask me.”
“A favor?”
“Yes, sire, and one which I could not easily grant, or he would not have insisted with so much less warmth.”
Charny breathed again, and the king’s look became calmer. Marie Antoinette was searching for something to say, with mingled rage at being obliged to lie, and grief at not being able to think of anything probable to say. She half hoped the king would be satisfied, and ask no more, but he said:
“Let us hear, madame, what is the favor so warmly solicited, which made M. de Charny kneel before you; I may, perhaps, more happy than you, be able to grant it.”
She hesitated; to lie before the man she loved was agony to her, and she would have given the world for Charny to find the answer. But of this he was incapable.
“Sire, I told you that M. de Charny asked an impossible thing.”
“What is it?”
“What can one ask on one’s knees?”
“I want to hear.”