“Yes.”
“She is sixteen, fair as Venus, and—— ”
“You have seen her?”
“At Trianon, where I passed the evening with her—— and the King and I talked about her by the hour together. Are you vexed at this?”
“Certainly not; but the King is accused of having—— ”
“Bad morals? is that what you were about to say?”
“Lord forbid! I would not speak ill of his Majesty, who has the right to have any kind of morality he likes.”
“What is the meaning of your astonishment, then? do you intend to assert that Mdlle. de Taverney is not an accomplished beauty and that consequently the King has not the right to look at her with an admiring eye?”
Taverney simply shrugged his shoulders and fell into a brown study, watched by Richelieu’s pitilessly prying eye.
“All right! I guess what you would say if you spoke aloud,” continued the marshal, “to wit that the King is habituated to bad company. That he likes the mud, as they say; but would be all the better if he turned from salacious talk, libertine glances, and the common woman’s jests to remark this treasure of grace and charm of every kind—the nobly-born young lady with chaste affections and modest bearing—— ”