"You are taking it for granted, Sire, that France will fail you?" she said somewhat testily.
"Nay! why should you say that?" he asked.
"Oh! the ring—the obvious understanding between you and milor."
"Was it not your wish, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh! a mere suggestion—in case France failed you, and I were powerless to remind her of her promise."
"Pa ma foi," he rejoined gallantly, "and you'll command me, I'll believe that contingency to be impossible. The whole matter of the ring is a whim of Eglinton's, and I swear that I'll only trust to France and to you."
"No, no!" she said quickly, her own sound common sense coming to the rescue just in time to rout the unreasoning petulance of a while ago, which truly had been unworthy of her. "It was foolish of me to taunt, and I pray your Majesty's forgiveness. It would have been joy and pride to me to feel that the plans for your Majesty's safety had been devised by me, but I gladly recognize that milor Eglinton hath in this matter the prior claim."
Her little speech was delivered so simply and with such a noble air of self-effacement that it is small wonder that Charles Edward could but stand in speechless admiration before her. She looked such an exquisite picture of proud and self-reliant womanhood, as she stood there, tall and erect, the stiff folds of her white satin gown surrounding her like a frame of ivory round a dainty miniature. Tears of enthusiasm were in her eyes, her lips were parted with a smile of encouragement, her graceful head, thrown slightly back and crowned with the burnished gold of her hair, stood out in perfect relief against the soft-toned gold and veined marble of the walls.
"I entreat you, Mademoiselle," said the Young Pretender at last, "do not render my departure too difficult by showing me so plainly all that I relinquish when I quit the fair shores of France."
"Your Majesty leaves many faithful hearts in Versailles, none the less true because they cannot follow you. Nay! but methinks Lord Eglinton and I will have to make a pact of friendship, so that when your Majesty hath gone we might often speak of you."