"I will do what I can," Mademoiselle answers in a husky voice.
"Do what you can!" retorts Lauzun, turning upon her savagely, "do what you can! Morbleu, if you answer me like that, I will tell you the truth. You have ruined me—you have destroyed my reputation—lost me my position. Louise d'Orléans, I wish I had never seen you!"
"It is false," returns Mademoiselle, in a loud voice, her passion rising at his injustice; "it is false. I have not injured you—the King will tell you so himself." Lauzun is growing more and more defiant, almost threatening. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword. This is too much even for her to bear. "If you have nothing more to say, Monsieur de Lauzun, leave me." She speaks with the habit of command long years have given her.
"I will not go," cries he; "you have no right to order me. Am I not your husband?" Lauzun hisses out these last words, more like a venomous serpent than a man. He grasps the arm of Mademoiselle, who shrinks away from him. His whole bearing is wild and menacing. "You leave me without money, you who have lost me all I value in the world; you, who are old enough to be my mother!" Mademoiselle covers her face with her hands, she cowers before him. "Can you deny it? Instead of providing me with a proper residence and equipage when I came out of prison, I have not even a carriage of my own. I am in miserable lodgings with Rollinde, one of your people, while you—you live in a palace. I have no money to pay my debts."
"It is false," she replies, rising and facing him boldly. "I have paid your debts. If you have fresh ones they are gambling debts. Those I refuse to pay."
"But you shall!" roars Lauzun, stamping his foot and raising his hand as if to strike her. "I am your husband. I have a right to all you have."
"I will pay no more," shrieks Mademoiselle, now excited beyond fear. "Go to your friends, those ladies you love so well, Madame de Montespan and the others." She clenches her fist as the bitter pangs of jealousy shoot through her soul. "I will not pay such debts," she repeats; then she draws herself up, and faces him with a courage he has never seen in her before. It calms him instantly.
"Look at these diamond buttons you sent me. They are vile. You have such splendid jewels!" He lifts up his lace ruffles and displays a pair of solitaire diamonds of great beauty, which fasten his wristbands. He is as fawning and eager as a beggar.
"I will give you other diamonds," answers Mademoiselle with composure. "But what I do for you in future depends on your own conduct, Monsieur de Lauzun, or rather Duc de Montpensier, for such I have created you."