"I trust so, Sire."
"And I don't believe a word of it."
"Ah!" said the Marchioness, "but that is, in truth, a most terrible supposition. Besides, Sire, they are on their way hither."
"Both of them?"
"One after the other: the Marquis at one o'clock precisely; the Baron at two. I promised them my decision to-morrow, on condition that they would pay me a final visit to-day."
As the Marchioness finished, the valet, who had announced the King, came to inform his mistress, that Monsieur de Beaugency was in the drawing-room, and solicited the favour of admission to pay his respects.
"Capital!" said Louis XV., smiling as though he were eighteen; "show Monsieur de Beaugency in. Marchioness, you will receive him, and tell him the price that you set upon your hand."
"And what is the price, Sire?"
"You must give him the choice—either to renounce you, or to consent to send in to me his resignation of his appointments, in order that he may go and bury himself with his wife on his estate of Courlac, in Poitou, there to live the life of a country gentleman."
"And then, Sire?"