“Meanwhile you forget your prisoners,” she said, rising abruptly.
“Hey! what care I for them? I give them leave to kill me.”
“What! are they murderers?”
“Oh, don’t be frightened, little one; we hold them fast. Don’t think of them, but of me. Do you love me?”
“Sire!” she cried.
“Sire!” he repeated, sparks darting from his eyes, so violent was the rush of his anger at the untimely respect of his mistress. “You are in league with my mother.”
“O God!” cried Marie, looking at the picture above her prie-dieu and turning toward it to say her prayer, “grant that he comprehend me!”
“Ah!” said the king suspiciously, “you have some wrong to me upon your conscience!” Then looking at her from between his arms, he plunged his eyes into hers. “I have heard some talk of the mad passion of a certain Entragues,” he went on wildly. “Ever since their grandfather, the soldier Balzac, married a viscontessa at Milan that family hold their heads too high.”
Marie looked at the king with so proud an air that he was ashamed. At that instant the cries of little Charles de Valois, who had just awakened, were heard in the next room. Marie ran to the door.
“Come in, Bourguignonne!” she said, taking the child from its nurse and carrying it to the king. “You are more of a child than he,” she cried, half angry, half appeased.