"But, Diane, suppose you were to see this dream with your eyes, and touch it with your hands, what would you do!"
"Indeed I do not know, my good constable," said Madame de Valentinois; "we should have to consult and look around, and then act. Anything rather than that extremity! If the king abandons us, why, then, we must get along without him; and confidently anticipating that he will never dare to disavow what we have done after the event, we must exercise our own power and our personal influence and credit to the utmost."
"Ah, that is just what I expected you would say!" said the constable. "Our power! our personal influence! Speak of your own, Madame; but as for mine, it has sunk so low that in truth I look upon it as dead and gone. My enemies within, for whom just now you expressed so much pity, might have very pretty sport with me at this time. There is no gentleman at this court who hasn't more power than this pitiful constable. You can see yourself how I am avoided. It is very simple; for who would care to pay his court to a fallen star! It will be much safer, therefore, Madame, for you not to rely hereafter upon the support of a discredited, disgraced old servant, friendless and without influence, yes, even penniless."
"Penniless!" Diane echoed incredulously.
"Why yes, Madame,—penniless, by the Mass!" said the constable a second time, and angrily. "That is perhaps the most grievous part of it, at my age, and after all the services I have rendered. The last war ruined me; for my ransom and those of several of my people exhausted my last pecuniary resources. Those who abandon me know it very well. I shall be reduced one of these days to going about the streets asking for alms, like Belisarius, the Carthaginian general, I think it was, whom I have heard my nephew, the admiral, speak of."
"What! have your friends all left you, my constable?" asked Diane, smiling at her old lover's erudition, as well as at his covetousness.
"Yes," said the constable: "I have no friends, I tell you." He added, most pathetically,—"The unfortunate never have friends."
"I propose to prove you in the wrong," said Diane. "I can clearly see now the source of this sullen humor which has gained control of you. But why did you not tell me in the first place? Do you lack confidence in me, pray? It is sad, indeed, if you do. But no matter! I only intend to be revenged in a friendly way. Tell me, did not the king impose a new tax last week?"
"Yes, dear Diane," replied the constable, who had grown much calmer under the influence of Diane's words; "a very just tax, too, and heavy enough to defray all the expenses of the war."
"That will do very well," said Diane; "and I will show you that even a woman may be able to do more than repair fortune's cruel blows to such men as you. Henri seems to me to be in a very ill-humor to-day. But never mind! I will speak with him forthwith; and you will soon be forced to agree that I am a kind friend and faithful ally."