Damaris remained silent.
'The chief instinct of the lady you speak of is to provide herself with amusement,' said Rosselin curtly. 'She usually fails, because the world is so small.'
'You are unjust to her,' said Béthune, her loyal servant and courtier. 'I am sure that she felt the truest interest in Mademoiselle Bérarde. We were all of us distressed when we learned that that magic isle was tenantless.'
'The new Virginie has left her isle,' said Rosselin, 'and I am endeavouring that she shall not make shipwreck on these stonily seas of art and life. My dear duke, great ladies like your châtelaine of Amyôt let fall idle words, never thinking what they may bring forth. It is so easy to destroy content and to suggest ambition. But to efface a suggestion is very hard when once it has taken root in a young mind.'
Béthune guessed at his meaning. 'The world will be the gainer,' he said, as they entered the courtyard of the Croix Blanche.
Damaris called a man to his horse, then, without even looking at him, she crossed the court and went indoors, and he saw her no more.
'She is very much changed,' said Béthune in surprise as he looked at the dusky archway of the door through whose shadows she had passed from his sight. 'What is her story since I saw her on that happy island; I shall never forget it; its blue sea, its radiant air, its scent of orange-flowers, its handsome child reciting to us from Esther—it was a poem. Are you going to make a great artist of her? Tell me her story since that day I saw her on her isle.'
'I do not know it,' said Rosselin. 'All I have to do with is the Muse in her. My dear Duke, I repeat, your gracious Lady of Amyôt, for her own diversion, poured into a childish breast a little drop of that divine curiosity which men call ambition: it was only a drop but it burned its way into the soul, and will eat up the life before it has done, I dare say. Madame Nadège did not care what mischief she did: oh no: she only wanted to while away an empty hour for herself.'
Béthune reddened indignant for his absent sovereign.
'As you are so great an artist yourself you should think that she did well in waking any soul to art.'