"Ah!" said Turbo, with more than his ordinary sneer, "I knew what the General would be thinking when she shrank on her father's arm. It was very clumsy."
"Positively disgusting," cried the General, with great relief.
At this moment a chamberlain announced that the Marquis de Tricotrin was at the palace, and awaited General Dolabella's leisure.
"I ventured last night," explained Dolabella hurriedly, "to ask him to see the gardens; we were discussing a little question of tactics which I thought we might elucidate there at our leisure."
"And was his daughter coming with him?" asked the King, with affected unconcern.
"That is what is so annoying," the General answered. "You see he asked if he might bring her, and what could I say? It will be hopeless to settle the point this morning."
"Not at all, General," said Turbo maliciously; "you could not have a better master in tactics than Mlle de Tricotrin."
"Yes," laughed the King, "you had better go at once. I excuse your further attendance."
"What a child our General is!" said the King when he was gone. "Now tell me what you thought of her, Turbo. It always amuses me."
So Turbo told the King what he wanted the King to think. He was never more trenchant or merciless; but the more he reviled, the more clearly there came before the King's eyes the beautiful face and the baby look it wore when she seemed to forget herself in the dance. Whether it was this, or whether it was that Turbo was more brutal than usual, it matters little, but the King was not amused. The Chancellor's coarse satire seemed particularly distasteful. He began to wish he had not started the subject. At last as he listened he noticed the founder's rapier was still lying on the table between them. That increased his discomfort. He looked up into the shadows under the morion, and then at his watch. It was time for his morning walk, and he descended by his private stair into the gardens.