“I fear not, more’s the pity,” André answered.
The King flung himself into a chair. His ennui had remastered him, and he stared at the screen dully. “Your Majesty is tired,” the Marquise murmured, kneeling to slip a cushion under his head. “I will read to you something amusing.”
“Not for worlds. They do not write amusing books in Paris to-day as they once did.” He stared at the carpet, then at her faultless dress, and André observed how his hand listlessly rested on hers as she remained kneeling by his side.
“It is only the book of life that is amusing, Sire,” she retorted with a gay nod. “Your Majesty writes a fresh page in mine every day.”
“Is it amusing?” he asked with a faint flash of interest.
“Shall I tell you, Sire, what my woman said this morning? ‘Do you laugh, Madame,’ quoth she, ‘when the King talks because it is a jest or because he is the King?’”
Louis looked up. “And your answer?”
“You must guess, Sire.”
“Because he is the King,” he said gloomily.
“No, no. ‘The King never jests with me,’ I replied, ‘and he is never the King to me; he is only—’” she completed the sentence by a curtsey to her heels and the suspicion of a kiss on his fingers.