"With all his faults, Mazarin is a great minister. He is a better financier than Richelieu was. He is husbanding. Louis XIV will become a great king whenever Mazarin dies. We who live shall see. Louis is simply repressed. He will burst forth all the more quickly when the time comes."
"Is it true that her Majesty is at times attacked by a strange malady?"
"A cancer has been discovered growing in her breast."
Du Puys opened his commission and ran over it. He studied the lean, slanting chirography of the prime minister and stroked his grizzled chin. His thought went back to the days when the handsome Buckingham threw his pearls into an admiring crowd. "Woman and the world's end," he mused. "Who will solve them?"
"Who indeed!" echoed Victor, resting his chin on the knuckles of his hand. "Monsieur, you have heard of the Chevalier du Cévennes?"
"Aye; recently dismissed from court, stripped of his honors, and exiled in disgrace."
"I am here to command his immediate return to Paris," and De Saumaise blinked moodily at the fire.
"And what brought about this good fortune?"
"His innocence and another man's honesty."
"Ah!"