"With an infinite tenderness and gentleness, Gabriel."
"No doubt," muttered Vicomte d'Exmès, "for he may very well believe, poor dupe, that she is his child! Only one thing surprises me," he continued aloud; "and that is, how the king, who must have felt in his heart that he should love you thus dearly, could have allowed twelve years to elapse without ever seeing you or knowing you, and have left you at Vimoutiers, lost, to all intents and purposes. Have you never asked him, Diane, for an explanation of such strange indifference? Such utter forgetfulness, do you know, seems hardly consistent with the kind feeling that he seems to have for you now."
"Oh," said Diane, "it was not he who forgot me,—poor Papa!"
"But who was it, then?"
"Who? Why, Madame Diane de Poitiers, to be sure! I don't know if I ought to say my mother."
"And why did she make up her mind to abandon you thus, Diane? Ought she not to have been glad and proud, and to have glorified herself in the king's sight for having given birth to you, and having thus acquired one claim the more to his affection? What had she to fear? Her husband was dead; and her father—"
"All that is very true, Gabriel," said Diane; "and it would be very hard, not to say impossible, for me to justify in your eyes this extraordinary feeling—is it of pride?—which has made Madame de Valentinois refuse to acknowledge me formally as her child. Don't you know, dear, that in the first place she induced the king to conceal the fact of my birth; that she consented to my being recalled to court only at his urgent request, which was almost a command; and that she didn't choose even to be mentioned in the decree by which I was legitimatized? I have no inclination to complain of her for it, Gabriel, because if it had not been for this inexplicable pride of hers, I should never have known you, and you would not have loved me. But, nevertheless, I have sometimes been pained to think of the sort of repugnance which my mother seems to feel for everything that relates to me."
"A repugnance which may be remorse only," thought Gabriel, with terror; "she was able to deceive the king, and it was not without hesitation and dread—"
"But what are you thinking about, dear Gabriel?" said Diane. "And why do you ask me all these questions?"
"Oh, for no reason at all! A misgiving of my anxious heart,—that's all; don't worry about it, Diane. But, at all events, if your mother does seem to feel only aversion and almost hatred for you, your father, Diane,—your father makes up for her coldness by his affection, doesn't he? And you, if you do feel shy and constrained with Madame de Valentinois, your heart expands in the king's presence, does it not, and recognizes in him a true parent?"