"Leaving the country," returned Charny.
"He guesses rightly," muttered the Queen, "how could he tell that?"
"Oh, goodness—anything can be surmised at this hour."
"But if flight is so natural, why do not you and your family take it?"
"I do not do so, in the first place, because I have pledged myself not only to your Majesty, but to myself, not to leave you during the storm. My brothers stay, as they regulate their movements by mine: and my wife remains because she loves your Majesty most sincerely, I believe."
"Yes, Andrea has a most noble heart," said the lady with visible coldness.
"That is why she will not quit Versailles," replied Charny.
"It follows that I shall always have you near me," went on the Queen, in the same glacial tone, awarded to prevent the hearer telling whether she felt disdain or jealousy.
A witness could have divined this secret, however, from their manner in this privacy.
Meeting romantically, without either knowing the other's quality, Marie Antoinette and George Charny had fallen in love with each other. The royal dame had left the passion swell to the highest point, when the King had surprised the pair in dangerous intimacy. There was only one way to save her reputation: she blurted out the first name of a lady that occurred to her, and protested that the count was at her knees sueing for this lady to be his wife, with the royal approval.