Mme. de Châteauroux started unfeignedly, and Louis' face flushed. His tone, however, was unmoved, as he said, slowly:
"Madame, order this person to leave the room."
La Châteauroux hesitated for the fraction of a second. Then she turned to de Mailly. "Monsieur," she said, "do you need further—"
But before she could finish Claude took the affair into his own hands. Moving until he stood between her and the King, and looking straight into her now impenetrable face, he spoke:
"Anne, when I came here to-night, I think you must have known what it was to say; and you will let me speak it now. Anne—I love you. I love you more dearly than anything upon earth. I offer you what I have to give—marriage, and the devotion of my life. You have been mistress of France, but I offer you an honester home, one in which you may obtain absolution. Choose, then, here and now, between us two. I ask that the King, as a man, will allow that choice—between marriage with me and freedom to live where we choose, or—the other life."
In the stillness which followed Louis de Bourbon glanced from the woman to the speaker and back again. Truly, the boy had courage, but something lacked in wit. Then the King felt for his snuff-box, opened it, smiled leisurely, took a pinch in his fingers, and, before absorbing it, re marked, dryly:
"Choose, madame."
La Châteauroux bent her head. It was not what she had planned, this situation. She herself it was who was bearing the difficult and the despicable part in it; for madame was but twenty-seven, and had still traditions of the family honor clinging to her. The answer came as though it cut her a little to speak her words, there, with the King's cynical eyes upon her, and all Claude's young, mad hope in his face:
"Claude—I wish you—good-night. Will your Majesty do me the honor to take a glass of wine?"