"No, no; you no longer possess that air of supreme contentment which renders you so beautiful and so attractive. You do not look at me. Why avoid my gaze?" he said, as she turned aside her head. "In Heaven's name, what is the matter?" he inquired, beginning to lose all command over himself.
"Nothing at all, sire; and I am perfectly ready to assure your majesty that my mind is as free from anxiety as you could possibly wish."
"Your mind at ease, when I see you are embarrassed at the slightest thing. Has any one wounded or annoyed you?"
"No, no, sire."
"I insist upon knowing if such really be the case," said the young prince, his eyes sparkling.
"No one, sire, no one has in any way offended me."
"In that case, do resume your gentle air of gayety, or that sweet melancholy look which I so loved in you this morning; for pity's sake, do so."
"Yes, sire, yes."
The king struck the ground impatiently with his foot, saying, "Such a change is positively inexplicable." And he looked at Saint-Aignan, who had also remarked La Valliere's heavy languor of manner, as well as the king's impatience.
It was utterly useless for the king to entreat, and as useless for him to try his utmost to overcome her positiveness, which was but too apparent, and did not in reality exist; the poor girl was completely overwhelmed—the aspect of death itself could not have awakened her from her torpor. The king saw in her repeated negative replies a mystery full of unkindness; he began to look all round the apartment with a suspicious air. There happened to be in La Valliere's room a miniature of Athos. The king remarked this portrait, which bore a considerable resemblance to Bragelonne, for it had been taken when the comte was quite a young man. He looked at it with a threatening air. La Valliere, in her depressed state of mind, and very far indeed from thinking of this portrait, could not conjecture the king's preoccupation. And yet the king's mind was occupied with a terrible remembrance, which had more than once taken possession of his mind, but which he had always driven away. He recalled the intimacy which had existed between the two young people from their birth; the engagement which had followed; and that Athos had himself come to solicit La Valliere's hand for Raoul. He therefore could not but suppose that, on her return to Paris, La Valliere had found news from London awaiting her, and that this news had counterbalanced the influence which he had been enabled to exert over her. He immediately felt himself stung, as it were, by feelings of the wildest jealousy; and he again questioned her, with increased bitterness. La Valliere could not reply, unless she were to acknowledge everything, which would be to accuse the queen, and Madame also; and the consequence would be, that she would have to enter upon an open warfare with these two great and powerful princesses. She thought within herself that as she made no attempt to conceal from the king what was passing in her own mind, the king ought to be able to read in her heart, in spite of her silence; and that, if he really loved her, he would have understood and guessed everything. What was sympathy, then, if it were not that divine flame which possesses the property of enlightening the heart, and of saving lovers the necessity of an expression of their thoughts and feelings. She maintained her silence, therefore, satisfying herself with sighing, weeping, and concealing her face in her hands. These sighs and tears, which had at first distressed, and then terrified, Louis XIV., now irritated him. He could not bear any opposition—not the opposition which tears and sighs exhibited, any more than opposition of any other kind. His remarks, therefore, became bitter, urgent, and openly aggressive in their nature. This was a fresh cause of distress for the poor girl. From that very circumstance, therefore, which she regarded as an injustice on her lover's part, she drew sufficient courage to bear, not only her other troubles, but even this one also.