CHAPTER XXIX.
THE LIQUOR OF BEAUTY.
THE beautiful favorite of Louis XV. had been shown into the parlor where she impatiently waited for Balsamo while turning over the leaves of Holbein’s Dance of Death, which caught her attention on the table. She had just arrived at the picture of the Beauty powdering her cheek before a mirror, when the host opened the door and bowed to her with a smile of joy over his face.
“I am sorry to have made you wait,” he said, “but I was a little out in my calculation about the speed of your horses.”
“Gracious, did you know that I was coming?”
“Certainly; at least you gave the orders for your sister to transmit them for your departure, while lounging in your blue boudoir.”
“Wizard that you are, if you can see all that goes on there, you must apprise me.”
“I only look in where doors are open.”
“But you saw my intention as regards you?”
“I saw that it was good.”
“So are all mine to you, count. But you merit more than mere intentions for it seems to me that you are too good and useful to me in taking the part of tutor the most difficult to play that I know.”