“He is beautiful!” said Charles IX., taking his son in his arms.
“I alone know how like he is to you,” said Marie; “already he has your smile and your gestures.”
“So tiny as that!” said the king, laughing at her.
“Oh, I know men don’t believe such things; but watch him, my Charlot, play with him. Look there! See! Am I not right?”
“True!” exclaimed the king, astonished by a motion of the child which seemed the very miniature of a gesture of his own.
“Ah, the pretty flower!” cried the mother. “Never shall he leave us! He will never cause me grief.”
The king frolicked with his son; he tossed him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, talking the foolish, unmeaning talk, the pretty, baby language invented by nurses and mothers. His voice grew child-like. At last his forehead cleared, joy returned to his saddened face, and then, as Marie saw that he had forgotten his troubles, she laid her head upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear:—
“Won’t you tell me, Charlot, why you have made me keep murderers in my house? Who are these men, and what do you mean to do with them? In short, I want to know what you were doing on the roofs. I hope there was no woman in the business?”
“Then you love me as much as ever!” cried the king, meeting the clear, interrogatory glance that women know so well how to cast upon occasion.
“You doubted me,” she replied, as a tear shone on her beautiful eyelashes.