"It is Madame de Montespan, the proudest woman in France," whispered De Catinat. "She would speak with us, so do as I do."
He touched his horse with the spur, gave a gambade which took him across to the carriage, and then, sweeping off his hat, he bowed to his horse's neck; a salute in which he was imitated, though in a somewhat ungainly fashion, by his companion.
"Ha, captain!" said the lady, with no very pleasant face, "we meet again."
"Fortune has ever been good to me, madame."
"It was not so this morning."
"You say truly. It gave me a hateful duty to perform."
"And you performed it in a hateful fashion."
"Nay, madame, what could I do more?"
The lady sneered, and her beautiful face turned as bitter as it could upon occasion.
"You thought that I had no more power with the king. You thought that my day was past. No doubt it seemed to you that you might reap favour with the new by being the first to cast a slight upon the old."