"Quite as many as that; but you cannot surely forget that there can only be one winner."
"No doubt. But who will that be? can you tell?" said Madame, in despair.
"You remind me that I had a dream last night; my dreams are always good—I sleep so little."
"What was your dream?—But are you suffering?"
"No," said the queen, stifling with wonderful command the torture of a renewed attack of shooting pains in her bosom; "I dreamed that the king won the bracelets."
"The king?"
"You are going to ask me, I think, what the king could possibly do with the bracelets?"
"Yes."
"And you would not add, perhaps, that it would be very fortunate if the king were really to win, for he would be obliged to give the bracelets to some one else."
"To restore them to you, for instance."