And so they sat in silence lapped each in the glamour of their dreams. Sharp awaking came with the abrupt entrance of Madame’s mistress of the robes.
“The King,” she cried, “the King is coming,” and she promptly fled.
The Marquise rose almost in terror. “Quick, quick,” she whispered, “you have the key.”
But Louis had already entered, sullen and bored.
André’s genius did not desert him. “Madame,” he exclaimed with a matchless mixture of dismay and despair, “I am ruined. The King has discovered me.”
Louis broke into a laugh. His royal and jaded humour was tickled by the comic dejection in the Vicomte’s face as he shamefacedly kneeled to kiss the King’s hand.
“Ma foi! The gentleman should think of the lady,” he said smiling, “and not merely of himself.”
“True, Sire, when the lady will think presently of the gentleman. But in this case the lady will not think of him at all—alas!”
André’s half-droll, half-passionate sigh provoked a second royal laugh.
“I must find employment for this idle vicomte,” Louis remarked to Madame, “and not in your household, parbleu!”