"Ah, Diane, you are as kind and good as you are beautiful! That I will always maintain," said Montmorency, gallantly.
"But when I have replenished the springs from which your influence and your favor flow, you will not abandon me, will you, my old lion? And you will not talk any more to your devoted friend of your powerlessness against her enemies and yours?"
"Why, my dear Diane, are not all that I am and all that I have at your service?" said the constable; "and if I sometimes grieve at the loss of my influence, is it not because I fear thereby to be less powerful to serve my beautiful sovereign mistress?"
"Very good!" said Diane, with her most seductive smile. She gave her lovely white hand to her superannuated lover, who imprinted upon it a tender kiss with his bearded lips; then, with a last encouraging glance, she moved away from him toward the king.
The Cardinal de Lorraine was still at Henri's side, watching over the interests of his absent brother, and doing his utmost to remove the king's fears as to the issue of the ill-considered expedition against Calais.
But Henri was paying more attention to his unquiet thoughts than to the cardinal's consoling words.
It was at this moment that Madame Diane approached them.
"I'll undertake to say, Messire," she began, addressing the cardinal with much warmth, "that your Eminence is saying to the king something unkind about poor Monsieur de Montmorency."
"Oh, Madame," retorted Charles de Lorraine, bewildered by this unexpected attack, "I venture to ask his Majesty to bear me witness that the name of Monsieur le Connétable has not been once uttered during our interview."
"That is true," said the king, carelessly.