“Have you nothing for me, Charlotte?” whispers the Princess, stretching out her little hand glistening with precious stones. “I know you have. Give it me. His eyes told me so when he passed me in the avenue.”
“Your highness must not ask me. Suppose her Majesty opens that door and sees me in the act of giving you a letter?”
“Oh! méchante, why do you plague me? I know you have something hidden; give it me, or I will search you,” and she jumps up and casts her soft arms round the lady-in-waiting.
Charlotte disengages herself gently, and with her eyes fixed on the low door leading into the Queen’s closet sighs deeply, and takes a letter from her bosom, bound with blue silk, and sealed with the arms of Guise.
“Ah! my colours! Is he not charming, my lover?” mutters Marguerite, as her eager eyes devour the lines. “He says he has followed us, disguised, from Tours; not even his father knows he has come, but believes him to be in Paris, in case he should be questioned by the Queen-mother,—Charlotte, do you think her Majesty recognised him in the avenue? He was admirably disguised.”
“Your highness knows that nothing escapes the Queen’s eye. The sudden appearance of a stranger in this lonely spot must have created observation.”
“Ah! is he not adorable, Charlotte, to come like a real knight-errant to gaze at his lady-love? How grand he looked—my noble Guise, my warrior, my hero!” and Marguerite leans back pensively on the settee, as though calling up his image before her.
“Her Majesty will be very angry, madame, if she recognised him. I saw her questioning the Duke, his father, and pointing towards him as he disappeared into the wood,” answered Charlotte, with the slightest expression of bitterness in her well-modulated voice.
“Henry has discovered,” continues Marguerite, still so lost in reverie that she does not heed her remark, “that the Queen has a masque to-night on the river. He will be disguised, he tells me, as a Venetian nobleman, in a yellow brocaded robe, with a violet mantle, and a red mask. He will wear my colours—blue, heavenly blue, the symbol of hope and faith—on his shoulder-knot. Our watchword is to be ‘Eternal love.’ ”
“Holy Virgin!” exclaims Charlotte, with alarm, laying her hand on Marguerite’s shoulder, “your highness will not dare to meet him?”