"That I cannot tell you," answered the King.
"But do you not know?"
"Yes, madam; but there are reasons why I cannot tell you," said the King, for he was now more determined than ever that Mlle de Tricotrin should not know how he had been influenced by her conversation.
"It is a strange request to make," said the Queen, a little coldly. "May I know nothing before I grant it?"
"She is a beggar-maid, madam, whom I have undertaken to protect; I beg you to ask no more."
"It is well, sir, perhaps, that I should not," returned the Queen, drawing herself up with all the pride of her ancient family. "It is a long time since a daughter of our house was served by beggars."
"But why not, madam, why not?" said the King warmly. "Where will you find truer nature, and, therefore, truer nobility, than there? It is they whom the noonday burns and who shiver in the night; it is they who hunger and thirst and want; it is they who know the only true joys, the joys that have risen out of misery; it is they who alone are pure, who have touched pitch and are not defiled. What are we beside them, with our empty, easy, untried lives? How can nobility grow out of such pettinesses as are our highest employments? No! there, out of doors, where men and women that groan and suffer, and shout for joy when it is done, that hate and love like the strong beasts of the desert, that curse when they are angered and smile only when they are pleased, there where these are ground together in the roaring mill of good and evil, there you shall seek and find the little nobleness that is left in our effete humanity."
"And is it the white flour you bring me from your dusty mill?" said the Queen haughtily. "How am I to tell it is not the husk that is only fit for swine?"