"My adored darling!"
"My life!"
"My supreme and only good! See! Though you had but a peasant's hood, I would love you better than all the queens of the earth!"
"For my own part," replied Mary, "though you were but a simple page, you and none other would reign in my heart."
"Oh, mon Dieu!" added François, "how I love to pass my fingers through your soft silky, fair hair, and to play with it and tangle it! I can well imagine that your women might often ask leave to kiss that round white neck, and those arms, so beautifully turned and so plump. But don't you let them any more, Mary!"
"Why not, pray?"
"Because I am jealous!" said the king.
"Foolish child!" laughed Mary, with an adorable childish gesture.
"Ah!" cried François, passionately, "if I had to choose between renouncing my crown and my Mary, the choice would soon be made."
"What madness!" exclaimed Mary. "How could any one give up the crown of France, which is the fairest of all after the heavenly crown?"