“Still, if your majesty would tell me——”
“Oh, it is simple; I wished you to return to court.”
“Never!”
“You refuse me?”
“Oh, madame, why should you wish me?—sorrowful, poor, despised, avoided by every one, incapable of inspiring sympathy in either sex! Ah, madame, and dear mistress, leave me here to become worthy to be accepted by God, for even He would reject me at present.”
“But,” said the queen, “what I was about to propose to you would have removed all these humiliations of which you complain. A marriage, which would have made you one of our great ladies.”
“A marriage?” stammered Andrée.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I refuse, I refuse!”
“Andrée!” cried the queen, in a supplicating voice.