"To Paris, sir?"
"Yes. I'll find work for you there, and those who do my work lack neither reward nor honour. Come, sir, am I not as good a King to serve as another?"
"Your Majesty is the greatest Prince in Christendom," said I. For such indeed all the world held him.
"Yet even the greatest Prince in Christendom fears some things," said he, smiling.
"Surely nothing, sir?"
"Why, yes. A woman's tongue, a woman's tears, a woman's rage, a woman's jealousy; I say, Mr Dale, a woman's jealousy."
It was well that my preparations were done, or they had never been done. I was staring at him now with my hands dropped to my side.
"I am married," he pursued. "That is little." And he shrugged his shoulders.
"Little enough at Courts, in all conscience," thought I; perhaps my face betrayed something of the thought, for King Louis smiled.