COLBERT.
"Ah, Sire, that is precisely the point I am coming to. They were all portraits of ladies who are or have been the acknowledged mistresses of Fouquet. If Madame la Duchesse de——"
"I beg you again not to mention any names, Duke," broke in the King haughtily, a storm gathering on his brow.
"If that lady, Sire, had not resembled the others, why should she have been there?"
To this somewhat daring question Louis did not vouchsafe a reply. His countenance darkened into an expression of silent rage. His eyes glittered as he passed his hand over them. When he spoke there was doubt, anxiety, as well as anger in his voice and manner. "I am astonished, I confess," said he, speaking very deliberately. "I am quite at a loss to explain it. Her portrait is there, you say. It may be, Saint-Aignan. I cannot doubt your word, but—it is impossible that——" He paused, and his eyes rested on her guileless face.
"Sire, it is not for me to differ from your Majesty," rejoined Saint-Aignan, fearful lest he had injured himself in the King's opinion by his over-frankness; "your superior intellect and far-seeing judgment will unfold to you mysteries impervious to my grosser comprehension; but I repeat, in the boudoir of M. Fouquet I saw the portrait of Madame La Duchesse—I beg your Majesty's pardon—placed among those of ladies whose relations with him are more than equivocal."
"I will speak to the lady myself. She is ignorant of this, I venture my life," said Louis, his eyes again fixing themselves wistfully upon La Vallière. "In the meantime, Duke, I thank you for your zeal in my service. Now, remember, until our return to Fontainebleau silence—absolute silence—or I shall never forgive you." Louis placed his finger on his lip—Saint-Aignan, glad to end so perilous an interview, bowed, and immediately fell back among the crowd of courtiers who hovered about the King.
Louis's blood boiled within him. He had controlled himself in the presence of Saint-Aignan, but it was with the greatest difficulty he could any longer restrain his passion. He longed then and there to call in the musketeers, and arrest Fouquet on the spot. D'Artagnan and his followers were at hand; it would have been the work of an instant. At a loss what to do, and feeling the necessity for some expression of the violent rage he felt, he approached his mother, Anne of Austria, who was leaning back in her chair, absorbed in a deep reverie. She was only present at that dazzling fête in body—her mind was far away. To her the pomps and vanities of the world were become a mockery and a toil; she longed for the seclusion of the cloister.
"It is all over," whispered the King, and his voice grated huskily in her ear; "Fouquet will be arrested to-night."