On the day succeeding that we have mentioned, when the famous scene took place at the dial-stone in the royal garden, the lieutenant of the archers, watching a time when the indefatigable royal roué left Mariette alone, approached her. She was seated on a stone sofa; and she who was wont to have eyes only for him, neither saw nor heard him, till he lightly touched her soft shoulder, and then she raised her blushing face, which immediately became ashy pale.
"Thou seemest absent, dear Mariette," said he.
"I wish that thou wert absent, too," she replied, pettishly, plucking leaf by leaf a flower the king had given her.
"Mariette, look at me. What hath come over thee? Art thou bewitched?" asked the young man, in a voice of anger and tenderness curiously blended; for he could not stoop to acknowledge the suspicions which filled his heart with bitterness and rage. "Wherefore art thou now so strange, so altered, so reserved, to one who loves thee so well, whose every thought is of thee, and whose whole heart is full of thee? Oh, unkind Mariette!"
She changed colour and trembled; but, without raising her dark eyes, continued in confusion and abstraction to pluck the leaves of the flower.
"Grant me patience, Heaven!" muttered her impetuous lover, whose sorrow still overpowered his rising wrath; "dearest Mariette, the gossips of our court (God's malison on them!) say that thy heart is changed towards me; is—is this true?"
"No."
"By St. Bothan! that no sounds too like yes to mean anything else," exclaimed Bolton, giving way to his passion and jealousy; "but if thou forgettest my faithful love, and preferrest the passing admiration of this silken squire o' dames—this carpet-king and holiday moth—whose proffered love is alike insulting and dishonourable, marry, come up! I say, Mademoiselle Mariette—I wish thee joy!" and, with a profound bow and glance of irony, he turned away.
Stung by his words and manner, which were partly assumed, Mariette Hubert, who had been repenting the too serious encouragement given, and still more a fatal promise made to the young king, now bent all her thoughts upon him, and endeavoured to banish Hepburn from her memory; while he, with all a lover's indecision, walked slowly away, deploring in his heart the outburst, which he was too proud and still too indignant to repair. Mariette gazed after him with her cheek flushing, and her dark eyes full of fire, and so they parted—for the last time.
"Fool that I was to love a Frenchwoman!" thought the lover.