“Ah, Madame,” said the Marquis softly, “you have been no more successful than I.”
She bit her full under-lip.
“He will not burn his fingers in any intrigue, that boy,” she answered; “and you are a fool, M. le Marquis, to meddle with him. What use is he to us?”
“He is too prudent.”
“Or too honest. A Calvinist—and tells me so—here. Quoted his House, Mon Dieu!… He might have been seventy—the other side of things.… His company hath frozen me—and heated me too.… I hate him. Take me home, Marquis.”
M. de Pomponne saw she was unusually angered; he pursed up his lips and shrugged his shoulders.
“The Prince will be glad of the offers he rejects now—in a while,” he answered.
She swung her fan to and fro.
“I would give something to be the one to master him.”