"Wait a moment," he would say, breaking into her flow of reminiscence, "'Monsieur' is——?"
"The Comte de Provence, the late King's brother, my uncle. My father, the King's next brother, the Comte d'Artois, is 'Monseigneur.' He has become terribly devout since Mme de Polastron died. The abbè Latil is his heart and mind and conscience. In his way he was fond of me, I believe, but since I came to understand the wrong he did my mother, I have detested him. And I have no doubt he was not sorry when I broke away. I was a perpetual reminder, you see——"
"And there is another Countess d'Artois?"
"Oh, yes,—Marie Thérèse of Savoy, but she is too awful,—a quite impossible woman, one must say that much for him. If ever a man had good excuse for seeking his pleasures elsewhere, he had. She was terrible. She had no more moral feeling than a cat."
"And Madame Adélaide——? Let me see—who was she?"
"My great-aunt—poor old thing! Those atrocious Narbonnes lived on her and turned her round their fingers."
"And Madame Elizabeth? It is terribly confusing."
"Not at all. It is all as simple as can be. Madame Elizabeth was my aunt, my father's sister. She was very sweet. Poor dear! They cut off her head, though she never harmed a soul since the day she was born. She was very good to me. If she had lived I do not think I would be here. She was not like the rest. I could have lived happily with her."
And so she chattered away,—about the late King—her uncle also,—and of the Duc d'Orleans,—"always a self-seeker, and intriguer, with a very sharp eye on the way things might turn to his own benefit. Oh, I am glad they took his head off. It was righteous retribution."—And of the Queen—— "She did foolish things at times, but she meant no harm, and, mon Dieu, how she suffered!"—And of Lafayette, and Talleyrand, and many and many another.
And it was indeed passing strange to lie there listening to it all—she clad in her blankets, for the night air had a chill in it, and he in the sea-damaged coat and small clothes of a gentleman of the Duke of Kent's suite, while between them the thin blue reek of the drift-wood fire on its hearth of sand stole up through the half-closed companion-hatch to the lonely night outside.