The tears gather in La Vallière's soft blue eyes. They course each other down her pallid cheeks, and fall, spotting her pale blue dress. Her head, covered with a profusion of short fair curls, is still bent down. She looks like a delicate flower bowed before a cruel tempest.
"What are you going to do with those fine diamond bracelets the King presented to you the other day out of the Queen's lottery?" asks Madame Henriette tauntingly, interrupting the Queen.
Anne of Austria makes a sign to her to be silent. Poor Louise for an instant turns her eyes imploringly upon her. Madame grows pale with spite as she remembers those superb diamond bracelets that the King drew as a prize from the lottery,—which she had fully expected he would present to herself,—were given by him to La Vallière. She is so wroth she cannot leave Louise alone; again she attacks her. "Your vanity is insufferable, mademoiselle. Do you imagine, petite sotte, that any one cares for you? Mademoiselle de Pons is the belle of the Court. His Majesty says so."
At this malicious stab Louise shudders.
"My daughter," interposes the Queen-mother, "do not agitate yourself. I understand your annoyance at having introduced such a person as Mademoiselle de la Vallière at Court. Let me address her. She is unworthy of your notice. You understand, of course, mademoiselle, that you are dismissed," she says, turning towards her and speaking imperiously.
"But, your Majesty—" and La Vallière's streaming eyes are again lifted upwards for an instant—"what, oh, what have I done?"
"Ask yourself, mademoiselle. Unless there are to be two queens of France, you must go. You cannot wish me, the mother of his Majesty, to enter into details on a subject so painful to my feelings."
"No, I should think not," breaks in Madame Henriette, "unless you have no sense of decency. A little unworthy chit like you to dare to trouble royal princesses; you are as impertinent as you are disreputable."
