"For that matter, your Majesty has weeping eyes," retorted the countess, with that recovered calmness which was the more embarrassing as it was pure effort of her will and was felt to be a screen over her real feelings.
Charny thought he perceived the same ironical tone that had marked the Queen's speaking a while ago.
"It is not astonishing," reproved he, with slight sternness to which his voice was unaccustomed, "that a queen should weep who loves her people and knows that their blood had flowed."
"Happily God hath spared yours," said Andrea, as coldly and impenetrably as ever.
"But her Majesty is not in question. We are talking about you. You have been frightened?"
"I, frightened?"
"You cannot deny you were in pain; has some mishap befallen you? Is there anybody you want to complain of—this Gilbert, whom you mentioned, for example?"
"Did I utter that name?" said Andrea with such a tone of dread that the count was more startled by the outcry than by the swoon. "Strange, for I did not know it, till the King mentioned it as that of a learned physician, freshly arrived from America, I believe, and who was friendly there with General Lafayette. They say he is a very honorable man," concluded Andrea with perfect simplicity.
"Then why this emotion, my dear?" said the Queen; "you spoke this Gilbert's name as though it were wrung from you by torture."
"Very likely. When I went into the royal study, I beheld a stern man clad in the grim black, who was narrating the most sombre and horrid things—with frightful realism, the murders of Flesselles and Launay. I was frightened and dropped insensible. I may have spoken in my spell and the name of Gilbert would be uttered."