“In fact, madame, what I might possibly have to say must be kept a profound secret; for when a lady is in the case——”
“Ah! you are speaking of Madame, then?” inquired the queen-mother, with a feeling of the liveliest curiosity.
“Yes.”
“Well, then, if you wish to speak of Madame, do not hesitate to do so. I am your mother, and she is no more than a stranger to me. Yet, as she is my daughter-in-law, rest assured I shall be interested, even were it for your own sake alone, in hearing all you may have to say about her.”
“Pray tell me, madame, in your turn, whether you have not remarked something?”
“‘Something’! Philip? Your words almost frighten me, from their want of meaning. What do you mean by ‘something’?”
“Madame is pretty, certainly.”
“No doubt of it.”
“Yet not altogether beautiful.”
“No, but as she grows older, she will probably become strikingly beautiful. You must have remarked the change which a few years have already made in her. Her beauty will improve more and more; she is now only sixteen years of age. At fifteen I was, myself, very thin; but even as she is at present, Madame is very pretty.”