Rénèe looked at her with an amazement not untouched with bitterness, for it was the wife of William of Orange who spoke so—a woman who had everything through the mere accident of birth, while she——! The beautiful young Fleming smiled ironically as she thought of herself and her poor life.
"Why are you not happy, Madame?" she asked. "You have all there is in the world—ease and friends and greatness—your children—the Prince."
"Yes," said Anne, with sudden sharpness, "but I am an ugly crooked woman whom no one loves."
Rénèe held her breath, it gave her a strange sensation to hear the Princess thus describe herself; she had always thought vanity completely blinded Anne.
"You thought I did not know?" continued her mistress, with that sudden look and tone of intelligence so painfully in contrast with her usual wildness. "I always knew. I had nothing from the beginning. You hated me—so did every one. When I thought he loved me I nearly went mad with joy. But he had married me for ambition, of course."
Rénèe, in her confusion of thoughts, felt impelled to defend the Prince, as if, for the first time, she saw some glimmer of justice in Anne's point of view.
"These great marriages are not made for love," she said.
"I was sixteen," remarked Anne drily. "I did not know anything."
"You could have made His Highness care," urged Rénèe.
"Not with this face and body," said the Princess curtly.