‘Where is la petite?’ Narcisse demanded. Behind her Queen, as usual?’
‘The young Queen keeps her room to-night,’ returned Diane. ‘Nor do I advise you, brother, to thrust yourself in the way of la petite entetee just at present.’
‘What, is she so besotted with the peach face? He shall pay for it!’
‘Brother, no duel. Father, remind him that she would never forgive him.’
‘Fear not, daughter,’ said the Chevalier; ‘this folly can be ended by much quieter modes, only you must first give us information.’
‘She tells me nothing,’ said Diane; ‘she is in one of her own humours—high and mighty.’
‘Peste! where is your vaunt of winding the little one round your finger?’
‘With time, I said,’ replied Diane. Curiously enough, she had no compunction in worming secrets from Eustacie and betraying them, but she could not bear to think of the trap she had set for the unsuspecting youth, and how ingenuously he had thanked her, little knowing how she had listened to his inmost secrets.
‘Time is everything,’ said her father; ‘delay will be our ruin. Your inheritance will slip through your fingers, my son. The youth will soon win favour by abjuring his heresy; he will play the same game with the King as his father did with King Henri. You will have nothing but your sword, and for you, my poor girl, there is nothing but to throw yourself on the kindness of your aunt at Bellaise, if she can receive the vows of a dowerless maiden.’
‘It will never be,’ said Narcisse. ‘My rapier will soon dispose of a big rustic like that, who knows just enough of fencing to make him an easy prey. What! I verily believe the great of entreaty. ‘And yet the fine fellow was willing enough to break the marriage when he took her for the bride.’