"Hush! Don't you see that the act is coming to an end?" said the roguish damsel. "Wait at least till the play begins again."
The entr'acte lasted ten minutes,—ten centuries, rather! Fortunately, Catherine, talking busily with Mary Stuart, did not call Gabriel to her side. He would have been quite capable of declining to go, even if it had been his everlasting ruin.
When the comedy began again amid shouts of laughter and noisy applause,—
"Well?" Gabriel inquired.
"Well, what?" replied Diane, feigning an indifference that she was very far from feeling. "Oh, yes, you were asking me, I believe, if I love you. Well, then! Didn't I answer you just now, thus: 'I love you as much as you love me'?"
"Ah!" cried Gabriel, "do you realize what you are saying, Diane? Do you know the extent of this love of mine to which you say that yours is equal?"
"But," said the little dissembler, "if you want me to know about it, the least you can do is to tell me."
"Listen to me, then, Diane, and you will see that since I left you six years ago every action of every hour of my life has tended to bring me nearer to you. It was only on my arrival at Paris a month after your departure from Vimoutiers, that I learned who you were: the daughter of the king and Madame de Valentinois. But it was not your title as a daughter of France that terrified me; it was your title as wife of the Duc de Castro, and yet something said to me: 'No matter! raise yourself to her level; win some renown for yourself, so that some day she may hear your name at least, and may admire you as others fear you.' Such were my thoughts, Diane; and I entered the service of the Duc de Guise, as the one who seemed most likely to put me in a way to win the honorable name at which my ambition pointed, speedily and well. In brief, I was shut up with him within the walls of Metz in the following year, and did my best to bring about the almost-despaired-of result, the raising of the siege. It was at Metz, where I remained to restore the fortification and repair all the damage inflicted in sixty-five days of assault, that I heard of the taking of Hesdin by the imperial troops and the death of the Duc de Castro, your husband. He had never even seen you again, Diane! Oh, I pitied him, but how I did fight at Renty! Ask Monsieur de Guise about it. I was also at Abbeville, Dinant, Bavay, and Cateau-Cambrésis. I was everywhere where the fire of musketry was to be heard; and I can fairly say that there has been no glorious action during this reign in which I have not had some little share.
"After the truce of Vaucelles," said Gabriel, continuing his narrative, "I came to Paris, but you were still at the convent, Diane; and my enforced repose was becoming very wearisome when, by good luck, the truce was broken. The Duc de Guise, who was anxious to give me some token of his good-will, asked me if I would follow him to Italy. If I would! Crossing the Alps in the depths of winter, we made our way through the Milanais, carried Valenza by storm, were allowed free passage through the duchies of Parma and Plaisance, and after a triumphal progress through Tuscany and the States of the Church, we arrived at the Abruzzi. Meanwhile Monsieur de Guise lacked money and troops; yet he took Campli, and laid siege to Civitella; but the army was demoralized, and the success of the expedition compromised. It was at Civitella, Diane, that I learned from a letter from his Eminence, the Cardinal de Lorraine, to his brother of your approaching marriage to François de Montmorency.
"There was nothing more for me to do on that side of the Alps. Monsieur de Guise himself agreed to that, and I obtained from his kindness permission to return to France, fortified with his weighty recommendation, and to bring to the king the flags we had conquered. But my only ambition and desire was to see you, Diane, to speak with you, and to learn from your own lips if you were entering into this new contract of your own free will; and finally, after having told you, as I have just done, of all my struggles and endeavors for these six years, to ask you what I now ask you once more: 'Tell me, Diane, do you love me as I love you?"