"No."
"By order of the king, Monsieur Pompée! Go and tell her that."
"By order of the king!" cried Pompée. "I will go."
He ran precipitately downstairs, impelled at once by respect and fear, two greyhounds which are quite capable of making a tortoise run at their pace.
Canolles kept on and entered his room, where he found Castorin snoring lustily, stretched out magisterially in a large easy-chair. He resumed his uniform and awaited the result of his latest step.
"'Faith!" he said to himself, "if I don't do Monsieur de Mazarin's business very successfully, it seems to me that I don't do badly with my own."
He waited in vain, however, for Pompée's return; and after ten minutes, finding that he did not come, nor any other in his stead, he resolved to present himself unannounced. He therefore aroused Monsieur Castorin, whose bile was soothed by an hour's sleep, bade him, in a tone which admitted no reply, to be ready for any thing that might happen, and bent his steps toward the princess's apartments.
At the door he found a footman in very ill humor, because the bell rang just as his service was at an end, and he was looking forward, like Monsieur Castorin, to a refreshing slumber after the fatiguing day.
"What do you wish, monsieur?" he asked when he saw Canolles.
"I request the honor of paying my respects to Madame la Princesse."