"And l'Anglais?"
"I have not yet tried."
"Ah! ah! ah!" laughed Pompadour merrily. "M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances, are all Englishmen as modest as you?"
"I—I don't know, Madame. I don't know very many," he replied.
"Here is M. le Contrôleur too bashful to sit on the edge of his own bed in my presence," she continued, still laughing. "Nay, milor, I'll wager that you were reclining on those downy cushions when you were flirting with Mme. de Stainville."
"Only under the compulsion of my valet-de-chambre, Madame," he protested, "or I'd have got up hours ago."
"Is he such a tyrant, then?" asked Louis.
"Terrible, your Majesty."
"You are afraid of him?"
"I tremble at his look."