The angry blood rushed up into Lorenzo's face, but he answered at first scoffingly. "If she did, sire, it must have been when I was insensible to the honour," said Lorenzo; but he added, in a sterner tone, "in short, my lord the king, he who said so is a liar, and I will prove it on his body with my lance."
"There is an easier manner to clear the young lady's reputation," replied Charles, "for cleared, of course, it must be. She is a ward of the crown. Her father was one of our best subjects and most faithful friends, and your own station and fortune, as well as our affection for you, render you, of all others, the man on whom we should wish to bestow her hand. But, my dear cousin," he continued, in a lighter tone, "there was, if I remember right, a fair lady in Italy whose knight you were when we were there?"
Lorenzo winced as if a serpent had stung him.
"She is nothing to me, my lord, nor I to her," he said; "her own will has severed every bond between us."
"Then there is no impediment," said the king, "to your marriage to Mademoiselle de Chaumont?"
"None whatever that I know of, sire," replied Lorenzo.
"And you promise me, whatever may happen to myself," said Charles, "that you will heal this little scandal, produced by her great kindness to yourself, by making her your wife as speedily as may be?"
"If she will accept my hand," replied Lorenzo, "of which as yet I know nothing; for no one word of love has ever passed between us; but God forbid that any evil chance should befall your Majesty, as your words seem to anticipate."
"Who can tell?" said the king in a gloomy tone. "Of four children my dear Anne has given me, not one remains alive; they have perished in their beauty and their bloom. Why should I not perish with them? This world is full of accidents and dangers, and we walk continually within the shadow of death. My thoughts have been very gloomy lately, my good cousin," and he laid his hand affectionately on Lorenzo's shoulder; "and yet what matters it," he continued, "whether it be to-day, to-morrow, or the next day? Stretch life out as long as we can, it is but a span at last. However, it is well, in this uncertainty of being, to delay not one hour anything that may be ruined by delay. I will have the royal consent to your marriage with the ward of the crown drawn out this morning. Come to me towards the hour of three, and it shall be ready for you. The queen will then receive you more graciously, when I have told her all, than she might do now."
When Lorenzo returned at the hour appointed, he was conducted into that beautiful hall still to be seen at Amboise, where he found the king, the queen, and several attendants, apparently ready to go forth. Anne of Brittany did receive him most graciously; and Charles handed him the paper authorizing his immediate marriage with Eloise de Chaumont.