It was sweet to think that he remembered them. During the past year or two when evil tongues spoke of him before her, of his recklessness, his dissipations, his servility to the growing influence of the Pompadour, she had not altogether believed, but her heart, faithful to the child-lover, had ached and rebelled against his growing neglect.
Now he was whispering explanations—not excuses, for he needed none, since he had always loved her and only jealousies and intrigues had kept him from her side. As he protested, she still did not altogether believe—oh, the folly of it all! the mad, glad folly!—but he said that with a kiss she would understand.
He was right. She did understand.
And he talked much of his ambitions. Was it not natural? Men were so different to women! He, proud of his love for her, was longing to show her his power, to rule and to command; she, half-shy of her love for him, felt her pride in submitting to his wish, in laying down at his feet the crown and sceptre of domination which she had wielded up to now with so proud and secure a hand.
Men were so different. That, too, she understood with the first touch of a man's kiss on her lips.
She chided herself for her mistrust of him; was it not natural that he should wish to rule? How proud was she now that her last act of absolute power should be the satisfaction of his desire.
That new Ministry? Well, he should have it as he wished. One word from her, and her father would grant it. Her husband must be the most powerful man in France; she would make him that, since she could: and then pillow her head on his breast and forget that she ever had other ambitions save to see him great.
Smiling through her tears, she begged his forgiveness for her mistrust of him, her doubts of the true worth of his love.
"It was because I knew so little," she said shyly as her trembling fingers toyed nervously with the lace of his cravat; "no man has ever loved me, Gaston—you understand? There were flatterers round me and sycophants—but love——"
She shook her head with a kind of joyous sadness for the past. It was so much better to be totally ignorant of love, and then to learn it—like this!