"Yes, I am jealous; I am, and shall always be jealous of you, Diane. Surely you didn't love him; but he loved you, the villain,—he dared to love you!"
"Mon Dieu! Sire, you have always lent too willing an ear to the slanders with which these Protestants are always pursuing me. That is not the part of a Catholic king. In any event, whether the man loved me or not, what does it matter, if my heart never for an instant ceased to be wholly yours, for the Comte de Montgommery has been dead many years?"
"Yes, dead!" said the king, in a hollow voice.
"Come, let us not grow mournful over these reminiscences on a day which ought to be a day of rejoicing," said Diane. "Have you seen François and Marie yet? Are they always so lovelorn, these children? Well their terrible impatience will soon be at an end. Think, in two hours they will be made one, and so glad and happy, but still not so delighted as the Guises, whose wishes are fully satisfied by this marriage."
"Yes, but who is in a fury about it?" said the king. "My old Montmorency; and the constable has so much the more reason to lose his head, because I greatly fear that our Diane is not destined for his son."
"But, Sire, didn't you promise him this marriage by way of amends?"
"Certainly I did; but it seems that Madame de Castro has objections—"
"A child of eighteen just out of a convent! What objections can she possibly have?"
"It is to confide them to me that she is probably waiting in my apartments at this very moment."
"Go to her, then, Sire, while I proceed to beautify myself to please you."