Then Marguerite de Navarre turned her pretty head and fixed her eyes upon Gilles. And he who stood by, listening and watching, heard distinctly that her lips murmured the two little words: 'Why not?'
A quarter of an hour had gone by. Both the actors in this palpitating little interlude had lost count of time—Gilles gazing pityingly, almost remorsefully, on the Queen, and she, thinking, thinking, wrestling with Fate, unwilling even now to give in.
And all the while she was looking on Gilles with a puzzled frown, whilst her lips kept on murmuring, as if unconsciously: 'Why not?'
III
'Messire de Crohin,' said Marguerite of Navarre at last. 'You said just now that you would give your life in my service if anything that you could do at this hour would retrieve Monsieur's folly. Did you mean all that you said, Messire?'
Gilles smiled. 'I am not a Royal prince, Madame,' he said simply. 'I cannot afford the luxury of playing with my word. 'Tis all I have.'
She sighed and looked on him with those appealing yet compelling eyes of hers, which had such marvellous power to bend poor, feeble man to her will.
'Oh! but do repeat what you said, Messire,' she said naïvely. 'If you only knew how I long for an assurance of fidelity from one who is really a man!'
'I do repeat then, your Majesty, what I said before,' rejoined Gilles solemnly; 'that I would give my life in your service if aught that I can do will retrieve Monseigneur's folly.'
She seemed to drink in his simple words as if they were nectar to her soul—her soul, which was thirsting for loyalty, for service, for strength and truth. Then she said quietly: