“Nay, Sire, he shall not,” said the woman, defiantly.
In her capacity of faithful subject and hero-worshipper, the unhappy lady would have submitted to her tongue being torn out rather than such words should have been uttered by it to her Prince. But as a mother, a wife, and a woman, there was no other course than to utter them. Besides, the King was a young man, too. In a sense she felt that her riper years made her the mentor of both these headstrong youths. She seized the case of pistols lying on the settle beside the bed. Her fingers closed upon them convulsively.
“Madam, I must ask you to give them to us,” said the King.
“Never!” said the woman.
The King shrugged his shoulders and put his brows up whimsically.
“Vous êtes difficile,” he said. “Celui qui force une femme contre son gré ne viendra jamais à bout. Now, madam, if I make my tone very winning, very coaxing, wilt thou not give them to me? Come, my dearest lady.”
The King held out his hand to take them with a pretty air.
“Never!” said the lady. Her fingers grasped them tighter than before.
“Patsy,” said the man in the pillows, in his weak voice, “do not be a fool.”
The King exchanged his look of slightly humorous deprecation for a mock severity.