"I thank you, my lord," she said to him, at last: "you have kept your promise to restore the King to me unhurt."
"Who is that?" inquired the sovereign: "Oh, Charny? But where is Gilbert, whom I do not see?"
"Come to supper," said the Queen to change the subject; "Go to the countess, my Lord Charny, and bring her. We shall have a family supper party, to-night."
She was the Queen again; but still she was vexed that the count, who had been sad, should cheer up at the prospect of his wife being in the company.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
WHY THE QUEEN WAITED.
A little calm succeeded at Versailles the political and mental tempests which we have chronicled.
The King breathed again: and consoled himself with his regaled popularity for what his Bourbon pride had suffered in truckling to the Paris mob. The Nobility prepared to flee or to resist. The people watched and waited.
Assured that she was the butt of all the slings and arrows of hatred, the Queen made herself as inconspicuous as possible: she knew that for her party she was the centre of all hopes.