Charles scarcely understood or even listened.
'Eh? Eh? What?' he asked, stammering and twitching. 'No, no, sister. No occasion.... Rise, rise, I beseech you.'
But the unhappy lady knelt on, embracing his knees, weeping, and covering his hands with kisses.
'Ah, Sire, if you also fail me, what remains to me but to take my life?'
This completed the king's embarrassment; puckering his face like a child about to cry, he stuttered:—
'There, there! Good God! 'tis impossible! Brissonet! Brissonet!—I can't. You tell her that——'
Before this lady, who in her humility and her desperation appeared to him sublime as some heroine of antique tragedy, he felt no sentiment of compassion, but only an inane desire to make his escape.
'Most noble lady, calm yourself,' said the cardinal, coldly courteous. 'His Majesty will do all that is in his power for you and for your consort, Messer Jean Galeas.' (So he Gallicised the name.)
The duchess looked at the cardinal; then looked at the king; and as if realising for the first time the sort of being to whom she was making supplication, became silent.
Deformed, pitiful, ridiculous, he stood before her, his mouth gaping, a foolish smile over his whole countenance, his light eyes opened in a senseless stare.