“But no one bade you or forbade you, dame! You were happy that no one came between you and your heart's desire!” replied Caroline.
Dame Tremblay laughed out merrily at the idea. “Poor Giles Tremblay my heart's desire! Listen, Lady, I could no more get that than you could. When I was the Charming Josephine there was but one, out of all my admirers, whom I really cared for, and he, poor fellow, had a wife already! So what was I to do? I threw my line at last in utter despair, and out of the troubled sea I drew the Sieur Tremblay, whom I married, and soon put cosily underground with a heavy tombstone on top of him to keep him down, with this inscription, which you may see for yourself, my Lady, if you will, in the churchyard where he lies:
“'Ci gît mon Giles,
Ah! qu'il est bien,
Pour son répos,
Et pour le mien!'
“Men are like my Angora tabby: stroke them smoothly and they will purr and rub noses with you; but stroke them the wrong way and whirr! they scratch your hands and out of the window they fly! When I was the Charming—”
“Oh, good dame, thanks! thanks! for the comfort you have given me!” interrupted Caroline, not caring for a fresh reminiscence of the Charming Josephine. “Leave me, I pray. My mind is in a sad tumult. I would fain rest. I have much to fear, but something also to hope for now,” she said, leaning back in her chair in deep and quiet thought.
“The Château is very still now, my Lady,” replied the dame, “the servants are all worn out with long attendance and fast asleep. Let my Lady go to her own apartments, which are bright and airy. It will be better for her than this dull chamber.”
“True, dame!” Caroline rose at the suggestion. “I like not this secret chamber. It suited my sad mood, but now I seem to long for air and sunshine. I will go with you to my own room.”
They ascended the winding stair, and Caroline seated herself by the window of her own chamber, overlooking the park and gardens of the Château. The huge, sloping forest upon the mountain side, formed, in the distance, with the blue sky above it, a landscape of beauty, upon which her eyes lingered with a sense of freshness and delight.
Dame Tremblay left her to her musings, to go, she said, to rouse up the lazy maids and menservants, to straighten up the confusion of everything in the Château after the late long feast.
On the great stair she encountered M. Froumois, the Intendant's valet, a favorite gossip of the dame's, who used to invite him into her snug parlor, where she regaled him with tea and cake, or, if late in the evening, with wine and nipperkins of Cognac, while he poured into her ear stories of the gay life of Paris and the bonnes fortunes of himself and master—for the valet in plush would have disdained being less successful among the maids in the servants' hall than his master in velvet in the boudoirs of their mistresses.