“Was he, indeed?”
The old woman was not to be mollified quite so easily, and, all the while that she watched the milk which she had put on the stove to boil for the child, she went on muttering to herself:
“Then why doth he not come? Why not, if he meant to?”
“He has been sent for, Margaï,” Nicolette said with a great air of importance, “by the King.”
“As if the King would trouble to send for Tan-tan!” old Margaï riposted with a shrug of the shoulders.
Nicolette stood before Margaï, drew her round by the arm, forcing her to look her straight in the eyes, then she put up her finger and spoke with a solemn earnestness.
“The King has sent for M. le Comte de Ventadour, Margaï. Do not dare to contradict this, because it would be disrespectful to an officer of His Majesty’s bodyguard. And the proof of what I say, is that Tan-tan has to start early to-morrow morning for Versailles. If the King had not sent for him he would have come here to see us in the afternoon, and all that thou didst say, Margaï, about his being proud and ungrateful is not true, not true,” she reiterated, stamping her foot resolutely upon the ground, then proceeding to give Margaï first a good shake, then a kiss, and finally a hug. “Say now, Margaï, say at once that it is not true.”
“There now the milk is boiling over,” was Margaï’s only comment upon the child’s peroration, as she succeeded in freeing herself from Nicolette’s clinging arms: after which she devoted her attention to the milk.
And Nicolette ran up to her room, and put her lighted candle in the window. She was humming to herself all the while:
“Janeto gardo si moutoun