“No, she is far more, she is enchanting. Some women are born for large destinies, and Mademoiselle d’Orantia is one of them. The King of France is a good judge of men and women, and it is known that his Majesty has said more than once that he may make a great destiny for Mademoiselle, for she can marry into any royal house in Europe, by virtue of her birth. It is thought that the King means to play her as a winning card with one of the Rhine principalities, to take it from the League; so this poor, dowerless girl, may yet walk next the Queen.”
“And how does Mademoiselle take it?” asked Roger, in a cool voice, as if not much interested in what Berwick was telling him.
“Rapturously. She adores her country, and is readier to be sacrificed than was Jephthah’s daughter. Unluckily, she wishes to love as well as to reign, and, as Madame de Beaumanoir says truly, the woman who is haled this way by love, and the other way by ambition, is marked for disaster. The Princess Michelle wishes all sorts of incompatible things,—to serve, as well as to love and to reign, to search both heaven and hell; and Fate, I fear, will oblige her in the matter.”
They were now at the gates of the château, a pile of grayish stone, with three terraces falling in front, and many stiff shrubberies and formal flower-beds about it. Beyond these artificialities was a small but beautiful park, left in its wild loveliness, very much like an English park, for Madame de Beaumanoir was bound to have something English in her surroundings. The place lay to the left of the town and forest, on one of those natural plateaus which make the neighborhood of St. Germains so charming. It was much lighted up, and many liveried servants held flambeaux to assist the guests in alighting from their coaches. Berwick and Roger, entering, were ushered into a fine saloon on the first floor, at the top of which sat Madame de Beaumanoir, in a kind of state, for no one was behind her in the assumption of rank on occasions. And standing near was Michelle. She bent her black eyes, under her delicate, straight, black brows, upon Roger, and smiled upon him without the least confusion; and he bowed to the ground, and felt within his breast the sad conviction that this woman, so far removed from him, was the woman he loved.
She said to him at once,—
“I have not forgot the favor you did me in the meadow.”
“You mean, madam, the favor you did me,” replied Roger. “I have been to that meadow many times before, but it seems to me as if I never truly saw it until the day before yesterday.”
“I like the meadow very much when we begin to make hay in it,” replied Michelle, smiling. “You must know that one merit of this place is, we have very simple pleasures, and one of them is to play at hay-making, and to have a rivalry in making hay-cocks. I believe except the Duke of Berwick, I can make the handsomest hay-cock in France. I like my pleasures out-of-doors.”
“So do I,” cried Roger. “I think I scarcely spent a waking hour indoors, once in the week, until I was sent to prison by the Prince of Orange.”
“Then, if you stayed not indoors at all, how came you by your education,” asked the Princess, aptly: “for I hear you are so good a scholar that the King of England has taken you among his secretaries.”