“Mademoiselle, that you should have written to the Queen in haste is deplorable now that your views have undergone this change. I am a stupid man, mademoiselle, just a blunt soldier with orders to obey and no authority to think. My orders are to conduct you to Paris. Your will was not taken into consideration. I know not how the Queen would have me act, seeing your reluctance; it may be that she would elect to leave you here, as you desire. But it is not for me to arrogate to determine the Queen’s mind. I can but be guided by her orders, and those orders leave me no course but one—to ask you, mademoiselle, to make ready immediately to go with me.”
The look of relief that swept into Valerie’s face, the little flush of colour that warmed her cheeks, hitherto so pale, were all the confirmation that he needed of what he suspected.
“But, monsieur,” said Marius, “it must be plain to you that since the Queen’s orders are but a compliance with mademoiselle’s wishes, now that mademoiselle’s wishes have altered, so too would Her Majesty’s commands alter to comply with them once more.”
“That may be plain to you, monsieur; for me, unfortunately, there are my orders for only guide,” Garnache persisted. “Does not mademoiselle herself agree with me?”
She was about to speak; her glance had looked eager, her lips had parted. Then, of a sudden, the little colour faded from her cheeks again, and she seemed stricken with a silence. Garnache’s eyes, directed in a sidelong glance to the Marquise’s face, surprised there a frown that had prompted that sudden change.
He half-turned, his manner changing suddenly to a freezing civility.
“Madame la Marquise,” said he, “I beg with all deference to suggest that I am not allowed the interview you promised me with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”
The ominous coldness with which he had begun to speak had had a disturbing effect upon the Dowager; the words he uttered, when she had weighed them, brought an immense relief. It seemed, then, that he but needed convincing that this was Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. This argued that for the rest he was satisfied.
“There, monsieur, you are at fault,” she cried, and she was smiling into his grave eyes. “Because once I put that jest upon you, you imagine—”
“No, no,” he broke in. “You misapprehend me. I do not say that this is not Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye; I do not say that—”