“The very best, mademoiselle,” I answered calmly. “I do not wish to magnify my service, but it was that or the scaffold. Madame your mother had, unfortunately, seen the King before me, and she had prejudiced your father's case by admitting him to be a traitor. There was a moment when in view of that I was almost led to despair. I am glad, however, mademoiselle, that I was so fortunate as to persuade the King to just so much clemency.”
“And for five years, then, I shall not see my parents.” She sighed, and her distress was very touching.
“That need not be. Though they may not come to France, it still remains possible for you to visit them in Spain.”
“True,” she mused; “that will be something—will it not?”
“Assuredly something; under the circumstances, much.”
She sighed again, and for a moment there was silence.
“Will you not sit, monsieur?” said she at last. She was very quiet to-day, this little maid—very quiet and very wondrously subdued.
“There is scarce the need,” I answered softly; whereupon her eyes were raised to ask a hundred questions. “You are satisfied with my efforts, mademoiselle?” I inquired.
“Yes, I am satisfied, monsieur.”
That was the end, I told myself, and involuntarily I also sighed. Still, I made no shift to go.