"Gracious heavens! what can a creature so young and brilliant know of sorrow?"
"Much. Alas! too much!" The beautiful Marquise raised her handkerchief to her eyes. "Monsieur de Montespan never loved me. It was a marriage arranged by my sister, Madame de Thiange. She sacrificed me to family arrangements; he to his love of play—he is a desperate gambler. Worse still, he is a libertine." She paused, and tried to blush. "Can I, dare I hope, Madame la Duchesse, to find a friend in you? Nay more—a protectress? May I be permitted to ask your counsel?"
"Reckon on me," cried La Vallière, who was deeply interested in this artful appeal. Madame de Montespan cared no more for her husband than he did for her. "Come to me whenever you need advice, whenever you want sympathy or protection. Come to me freely—at all hours, at all times—this house is yours."
"But, Madame la Duchesse, his Majesty may perhaps object to my presence here. I do not think he likes me. He has scarcely once addressed me during the few times I have been at Court."
"Ah, I will arrange that," answered La Vallière, her face all aglow with excitement. "I will manage that you shall be here when he comes. To see you, dear Marquise, as I do now, must be to esteem and respect you. His Majesty's heart is so excellent, all his ideas so great, so noble! You shall help me to entertain him; you have such charming spirits, such a sunny smile."
Madame de Montespan gave a little start. She could with difficulty conceal the delight this speech gave her, La Vallière had so completely fallen into the trap she had laid. Again she kissed her thin white hand, and pressed the long delicate fingers laid confidingly in her own.
"What an honour!" she exclaimed. "How happy I shall be to serve you in the smallest way, in return for all your goodness!"
"To serve me!" repeated La Vallière, gazing at her vacantly. "Not to serve me—that is impossible. Ah, no one can serve me. My life is a long remorse. I love—with my whole soul I love. That love is a crime. I can neither leave the King nor can I bear to remain. God's image rises up within me to shut out his dear form from my eyes. Alas, alas!—I prefer him to God." La Vallière melted into tears. She sank back on her chair, lost to all else but the agony of her own feelings.
Madame de Montespan observed her with a look of sarcastic scrutiny. No shade of pity tempered her bold stare. Her eyes were hard as steel, her full lips were compressed.
"How I admire your devotion to his Majesty," she said, in the most insinuating voice. "It is extraordinary." Her kind words singularly belied her cruel expression, but Louise, blinded by her tears, did not observe this. "What astonishes me is that, feeling as you do, you can endure to remain here—so close to the palace, almost living in the Court, so long. In such magnificence too,"—and she gave a spiteful glance round the superbly decorated saloon. "You must have extraordinary self-command," she added artfully, "immense self-denial. I suppose you see his Majesty often, Madame la Duchesse?" she asked this question with well-affected indifference, fixing her eyes steadily on poor La Vallière, who still lay back in her chair, weeping. "He is always at Versailles. It must be a great trial, and with your religious convictions too." As she spoke she carefully noted the effect each word produced upon La Vallière.