"Yes, you do really love me as I love you, do you not, Diane?"
"He really has the face to ask such a question!"
"But I, you see, dear, I adore you more and more every day, because you are every day more beautiful. Ah, what a lovely smile you have, sweetheart, and what a sweet expression! Let me kneel here at your feet. Put your fair hands on my shoulders. Oh, Diane, how lovely you are, and how dearly I love you! I could stay here and just gaze at you for hours, nay, for years. I would forget France, I would forget the whole world."
"And even this formal celebration of Monseigneur the Dauphin's marriage?" said Diane, smiling; "and yet it is to be solemnized this very day and in two hours' time. And even if you are all ready in your magnificence, Sire, I am not ready at all, you see. So go, my dear Lord, for it is time for me to call my women. Ten o'clock will strike in a moment."
"Ten o'clock," said Henri; "and upon my word, I have an appointment at that hour."
"An appointment, Sire? With a lady, perhaps?"
"With a lady."
"Pretty, no doubt?"
"Yes, Diane, very pretty."
"Then it can't be the queen."