"There is a good large garden there, belonging to an unoccupied house," he added. "And ranged along the wall are bushes, behind which my two men stand well screened."
"Did Your Excellency apprehend danger from that quarter?" inquired Hatzfeldt.
"Hardly," said he, "though it is as well to be on the safe side, and Versailles is pretty well packed with people by whom I am rather particularly detested. But as a fact, I placed the soldiers for the purpose of catching Madame's postman. You did not perceive as we stepped out of the shrubbery that she slipped an envelope into this creature's mouth?"
Hatzfeldt answered, in some astonishment:
"Why, no, Your Excellency. I saw nothing of the kind!"
The Minister said, shaken with the internal, secret laughter:
"And yet you have good eyes, better than mine for seeing some things at a distance.... A pretty face behind a thick veil ... a graceful figure concealed by a shawl. Possibly the friend who communicates with Madame Charles with the aid of this grinning fellow admires her.... There is no accounting for tastes...."
Hatzfeldt asked in a tone of disgust:
"Who is Madame Charles's friend? Is it possible that misshapen creature has a lover?"
The Minister answered with a curious grimace: