Deborah gave a slight, pretty smile. "I have only decided that I should like to finish Mouthier's comfits. We have not even touched the cream," she said, coquettishly.
Louis laughed. "Ah! That is well, that! Let us sit down."
Pardonable vanity, considering his experiences heretofore, had thrown him easily off his guard. So the two seated themselves again at the little table, Deborah, for an added bit of flattery, as he thought, taking the chair which he had used before, and which was nearest the door of escape. The King helped her bountifully to the smooth cream, which she began upon with apparent avidity.
"Louis," she said, suddenly, looking at him with a significant smile and eyes half closed, "pick up for me the paper that I dropped upon the floor. I—have not finished reading it."
The King was enchanted. She was surrendering at last. If she chose to make it easier for her vanity by treating him like a servant—why, he was willing. He rose at once and went back to the spot where Maurepas' document had fallen and been spurned by Deborah's heel. He stooped to pick it up. There was a crisp rustle of stiff, silk petticoats. He looked up just in time to behold his prize fling open the north door and hurry through it into the room beyond. This was the King's bedroom, and in it, at this hour, were only Bachelier, Levet, and two under-footmen. These four, in open-mouthed amazement, beheld the flying figure of a lady burst in from the Salle des Pendules, run across the royal room, and escape into the council-chamber, just as the King, purple with anger, shouted from the doorway: "Beasts! Fools! Idiots! Could you not hold her?"
Bachelier started up. "Shall I follow, your Majesty?"
"No, imbecile! Should the King's valet be seen chasing a woman through the corridors of Versailles at midnight? Ah! It is abominable!"
Thereupon his gracious Majesty threw himself into an arm-chair with an expression on his royal countenance which plainly told his valet that it would be many days ere an unnecessary word again passed the master's lips.
Once more, as a year ago, Henri de Mailly-Nesle sat in Claude's bedroom, on the eve of that young man's departure from Versailles. But the situation was different enough this time. Now it was Henri who, with a strong effort, sat trying to calm the feverish excitement and anxiety of the other. Upon the floor an open coffer stood ready; but nothing had yet been put into it. Claude would not admit a servant to the room. He was pacing rapidly up and down, up and down the apartment, talking sometimes wildly to Henri, sometimes silent, sometimesfx muttering incoherently to himself. His dress was disordered, his wig awry; one slipper and his sword had been tossed together into a corner. He was for the time bereft of reason. It was now half an hour since the return from the palace. D'Argenson's letter had been found awaiting them, but Claude had not read it. What need was there to do so?
"Henri, two hundred thousand is too much for the estate. The château is impossible—you are giving me money. I'll not have it—"