"Oh, my queen, my mistress!" he cried, passionately, "behold at your feet your most faithful servant, your most devoted slave. Receive from me the oath of my eternal devotion and love. You have honored me with your confidence, you have called me your friend. But my soul and my heart glow for another name. Speak the word, Marie Antoinette, the word—"
The queen drew back, and the paleness of death spread over her cheeks. She had at the outset listened with amazement, then with horror and indignation, to the insolent words of the baron, and gradually her gentle features assumed a fierce and disdainful expression.
"My lord," she said, with the noble dignity of a queen, "I told you before that God is above us, and hears our words. You have spoken, wantonly, and God has heard you. To Him I leave the punishment of your wantonness. Stand up, my lord! the king shall know nothing of an insult which would have brought you into ignominy with him forever. But if you ever, by a glance or a gesture, recall this both wanton and ridiculous scene, the king shall hear all from me!"
And while the queen pointed, with a proud and dignified gesture, to the place which was their goal, she said, with commanding tone:
"Go before, my lord; I will follow you alone." The Baron de Besenval, the experienced courtier, the practised man of the world, was undergoing what was new to him; he felt himself perplexed, ashamed, and no longer master of his words. He had risen from his knees, and, after making a stiff obeisance to the queen, he turned and went with a swift step and crestfallen look along the path which the queen had indicated.
Marie Antoinette followed him with her eyes so long as he remained in sight, then looked with a long, sad glance around her.
"And so I am alone again," she whispered, "and poorer by one illusion more. Ah, and is it then true that there is no friendship for me; must every friend be an envier or else a lover? Even this man, whom I honored with my confidence, toward whom I cherished the feeling of a pupil toward a teacher, even this man has dared to insult me! Ah, must my heart encounter a new wonder every day, and must my happiness be purchased with so many pains?"
And with a deep cry of pain the queen drew her hands to her face, and wept bitterly. All around was still. Only here and there were heard the songs of the birds in the bushes, light and dreamy; while the trees, swayed by the wind, gently whispered, as if they wanted to quiet the grief of the queen, and dry up those tears which fell upon the flowers.
All at once, after a short pause, the queen let her hands fall again, and raised her head with proud and defiant energy.
"Away with tears!" she said. "What would my friends say were they to see me? What buzzing and whispering would there be, were they to see that the gentle queen, the always happy and careless Marie Antoinette, had shed tears? Oh, my God!" she cried, raising her large eyes to heaven, "I have today paid interest enough for my happiness; preserve for me at least the capital, and I will cheerfully pay the world the highest rates, such as only a miserly usurer can desire."