Gabriel saw all this from a distance. Not one of his enemies' movements escaped him, and he suffered the torments of the damned.
But just when his heart was being thus torn by conflicting emotions, the young queen-dauphine, Mary Stuart, approached him gayly, and overwhelmed him with compliments and questions.
Gabriel, despite his anxiety, exerted all his powers to reply to her.
"Why, it's magnificent!" said Mary, enthusiastically, "is it not, my dear Dauphin?" she added, addressing François, her youthful husband, who joined cordially in his wife's friendly words.
"What would one not do to deserve such kind words?" said Gabriel, whose distraught eyes never left the group composed of the king, Diane, and the constable.
"When I felt attracted to you by a strangely sympathetic feeling some time ago," continued Mary Stuart, with the charming grace that was peculiar to her, "it was doubtless because my heart foresaw that you would contribute this marvellous achievement to the glory of my dear uncle De Guise. Ah, I would that I, like the king, had the power of rewarding you! But a woman, alas! has neither titles nor honors at her disposal."
"Oh, but I really have all that I could ask for in the world!" said Gabriel. At the same time he was thinking to himself, "The king no longer replies, he listens simply."
"Well, then," rejoined Mary Stuart, "if I had the power, I would create desires in you so that I might gratify them. But at this moment, see, I have nothing but this bunch of violets which the gardener at the Tournelles just sent me as a great rarity after the late frost. With the permission of Monseigneur le Dauphin, I will give you these flowers as a memento of the day. Will you accept them?"
"Oh, Madame!" cried Gabriel, kissing respectfully the fair hand that offered them.
"Flowers," continued Mary Stuart, dreamily, "offer us their sweet odor when we are glad, and comfort us in times of sorrow. I may be very unhappy some day, but I shall never be altogether so as long as I am allowed to have flowers near me. It is understood of course, Monsieur d'Exmès, that to you, in this hour of good fortune and triumph, I offer them only for their perfume."