Claude shook his shoulders impatiently. Then he sat up again, ashamed of having betrayed his feelings. The line of his lips grew hard. "No, it is true," he said, harshly. "The King means her for the next; while I—I—the fool—I love! I love! I love!"
"Ah, yes—so do we all. But 'tis not worth what we give for it. I am growing older, Claude. I see many things differently from what I did in youth. I should deeply rejoice at peace, honesty, fidelity, truth; but, since those things are not, and cannot be, I am satisfied with what I have—money, life, clothes, wines, dinners, a good bed, and a man who really knows how to prepare perfect snuff. I let women alone. I am wiser than you."
Claude looked sharply at his cousin. Certainly, if this were his creed, he was changed. The words and tone, however, served for the moment to still his own growing disquietude. He leaned dully back in his chair. "I should like to go down for a week or two to my estate—to Languedoc—if I dared leave," he observed. "It is an entire year since I was there."
"I went in July. They were doing well with it. Take madame, Claude, and live there for a month or two. It would be an idea."
"In all the cold? With a wolf-pack between us and every neighbor? Peste! What are you dreaming of? We should die. No. Some time Henri—some time, soon, now, when Versailles has become unbearable to me, I shall sell my ancestral possessions in la belle France, and with the proceeds I will sail away, over seas, to King George's colonies, perhaps; and there take up my abode among the good colonials, in the honorable capacity of tobacco-planter; a king in my own right, my plantation the kingdom, and the serfs all of ebony hue; with an overseer for intimate, and—not a little apartment in all my red brick palace."
Claude spoke half bitterly, half in jest. To his astonishment, Henri answered, seriously: "That would not be an unwise plan. When you wish to carry it out, I—will buy the estate from you."
De Mailly laughed shortly. "Well, I return to Versailles to-night. I must leave you presently."
"I am sorry. I should have liked to keep you here for the night."
"A thousand thanks. It is impossible."
"Before you go, tell me something of the Court. What occurs? How is the King? What is—said of the death?"