Florian released himself, rather petulantly. “Pardieu! but I entreat you to reserve these endearments for your bed-chamber! No, you must find some other playfellow for to-night. And I really cannot consent to be arrested, for it would quite spoil my Christmas.”
Orléans, rebuffed, said only, “But if I continue to ignore your misbehaviors, people will talk.”
“That is possible, your highness. It is certain that, under arrest, I also would become garrulous.”
“Ah! and of what would you discourse?”
Florian looked for a while at his red-faced friend beyond the red-topped writing-table.
Florian said: “I would talk of the late Dauphin’s death, monseigneur; of the death of the Duc de Bourgogne; of the death of the little Duc de Bretagne; and of the death of the Duc de Berri. I would talk of those inexplicable fatal illnesses among your kinsmen which of a sudden made you, who were nobody of much consequence, the master of France and the next heir to the throne.”
Orléans said nothing for a time. Speaking, his voice was quiet, but a little hoarse. “It is perhaps as well for you, my friend, that my people have been dismissed. Yes, I am expecting Madame de Phalaris, who is as yet amusingly shame-faced about her adulteries. So there is nobody about, and we may speak frankly. With frankness, then, I warn you that it is not wholesome to threaten a prince of the blood, and that if you continue in this tone you may not long be permitted to talk anywhere, not even in one of the many prisons at my disposal.”
“Ah, your highness, let us not speak of my death, for it is a death which you would deplore.”
“Would I deplore your death?” Orléans’ head was now cocked until it almost lay upon his left shoulder. “It is a fact of which I am not wholly persuaded.”
“Monseigneur, mere self-respect demands that one’s death should rouse some grief among one’s friends. So I have made certain that your grief would be inevitable and deep. For I am impatient of truisms—”