“I repeat his own words, my lady. Looking round and addressing me, he wanted to know where the Countess of Charny was. ‘I have not seen her this evening,’ said he. As this was specially directed to me, I made bold to reply. ‘Sire,’ I said, ‘I have so seldom the pleasure of seeing the countess that I am in the state of impossibility to tell where she is; but if your Majesty wishes to know, he might inquire of the Queen who, knowing, will reply!’ I insisted as I judged from the Queen looking black, that some difference had arisen between you.”
Andrea was so enwrapt in the listening that she did not think of saying anything.
“The Queen made answer that the Countess of Charny had gone away from the palace with no intention to return. ‘Why, what motive can your best friend have in quitting the palace at this juncture?’ inquired the King. ‘Because she is uncomfortable here,’ replied the Queen who had started at the title you were given. ‘Well, that may be so; but we will find accommodation for her and the count beside our own rooms,’ went on the King. ‘You will not be very particular, eh, my lord?’ I told him that I should be satisfied with any post as long as I could serve him in it. ‘I know it well: so that we only want the lady called back from—’ the Queen did not know whither you had departed. ‘Not know where your friend has gone?’ exclaimed the King. ‘When my friends leave me I do not inquire after them.’ ‘Good, some woman’s quarrel,’ said Louis; ‘my Lord Charny, I have to speak a while with the Queen. Kindly wait for me and present your brother who shall start for Turin this evening. I am of your opinion that I shall require you and I mean to keep you by me.’ So I sent for my brother who was awaiting me in the Green Saloon, I was told.”
At the mention, Andrea, who had nearly forgotten Sebastian in her interest in her husband’s story, was made to think of all that had passed between mother and son, and she threw her eyes with anguish on the bedroom door where she had placed him.
“But you must excuse me for talking of matters but slightly interesting you while you are no doubt wishful to know why I have come here.”
“No, my lord, what you say does engage me,” replied the countess; “your presence can only be agreeable on account of the fears I have felt on your account. I pray you to continue. The King asked you to wait for him and to bring your brother.”
“We went to the royal apartments, where he joined us in ten minutes. As the mission for the princes was urgent he began by that. Their Highnesses were to be instructed about what had happened. A quarter of an hour after the King came, my brother was on the road, and the King and I were left alone. He stopped suddenly in pacing the room and said: ‘My lord, do you know what has passed between the Queen and the countess?’ I was ignorant. ‘Something must have happened,’ he went on, ‘for the Queen is in a temper fit to massacre everybody, and it appears to me unjust to the countess—which is odd, as the Queen usually defends her friends through thick and thin, even when they are wrong.’ ‘I repeat I know nothing, but I venture to assert that the countess has done no wrong—even if we cannot admit that a queen ever does so.'”
“I thank your lordship for having so good an opinion of me,” said Andrea.
“'I suppose as the countess has a house in town that she has retired there,’ I suggested. ‘Of course! I will give you leave of absence till to-morrow on condition that you bring back the countess,’ said the King.”
Charny looked at his wife so fixedly that she was unable to bear the glance and had to close her eyes.