"Madame," said he, as he saluted her, "I have come to show you your lily, which is almost finished; almost nothing is lacking to complete it save the two hundred thousand crown dewdrop you promised to furnish me."
"Very well! and your Colombe?" was the only reply vouchsafed by Madame d'Etampes.
"If you mean Mademoiselle d'Estourville, madame," rejoined Ascanio gravely, "I will beg you on my knees not to pronounce her name again before me. Yes, madame, I most humbly and earnestly implore you that this subject may never be mentioned between us, in pity's name!"
"Aha! spite!" said the duchess, who did not remove her penetrating gaze from Ascanio's face for an instant.
"Whatever the feeling which influences me, madame, and though I were to be disgraced in your eyes, I shall venture to decline hereafter to talk with you upon this subject. I have sworn a solemn oath that everything connected with that memory shall be dead and buried in my heart."
"Am I mistaken?" thought the duchess; "and has Ascanio no part in this transaction? Can it be that the child has followed some other adorer, voluntarily or perforce, and, although lost to my ambitious schemes, has served the interests of my passion by her flight?"
Having indulged in these reflections beneath her breath, she continued, aloud:—
"Ascanio, you beg me not to speak of her again, but you will at least allow me to speak of yourself. You see that in obedience to your entreaty I do not insist, but who knows if this second subject will not be even more disagreeable to you than the first? Who knows—"
"Forgive me for interrupting you, madame," said the young man, "but your kindness in granting me the favor I ask emboldens me to ask another. Although of noble birth, I am simply a poor, obscure youth, reared in the gloom of a goldsmith's workshop, and from that artistic cloister I am suddenly transported to a brilliant sphere, involved in the destiny of empires, and, weak creature that I am, having powerful noblemen for enemies, and a king for rival. And such a king, madame! François I., one of the most powerful princes in Christendom! I have suddenly found myself elbow to elbow with the most illustrious names of the age. I have loved hopelessly, I have been honored with a love I could not return! And with whose love? Great God! yours, madame, one of the loveliest and noblest women on earth! All this has sown confusion within me and without; it has bewildered and crushed me, madame.
"I am as terrified as a dwarf awaking to find himself among giants: I haven't an idea in its place, not a feeling which I can explain. I feel lost among all these terrible animosities, all these implacable passions, all these soaring ambitions. Madame, give me time to breathe, I conjure you; permit the poor shipwrecked wretch to collect his thoughts, the convalescent to recover his strength. Time, I hope, will restore order in my mind and my life. Time, madame, give me time, and in pity's name see in me to-day only the artist who comes to ask if his lily is to your taste."