"Why should you think of such things, sire?" said the lady, in her rich, soothing voice. "What have you to fear, you who have been the first son of the Church?"
"You think that I am safe, then?"
"Surely, sire."
"But I have erred, and erred deeply. You have yourself said as much."
"But that is all over, sire. Who is there who is without stain? You have turned away from temptation. Surely, then, you have earned your forgiveness."
"I would that the queen were living once more. She would find me a better man."
"I would that she were, sire."
"And she should know that it was to you that she owed the change. Oh, Francoise, you are surely my guardian angel, who has taken bodily form! How can I thank you for what you have done for me?" He leaned forward and took her hand, but at the touch a sudden fire sprang into his eyes, and he would have passed his other arm round her had she not risen hurriedly to avoid the embrace.
"Sire!" said she, with a rigid face and one finger upraised.
"You are right, you are right, Francoise. Sit down, and I will control myself. Still at the same tapestry, then! My workers at the Gobelins must look to their laurels." He raised one border of the glossy roll, while she, having reseated herself, though not without a quick questioning glance at her companion, took the other end into her lap and continued her work.
"Yes, sire. It is a hunting scene in your forests at Fontainebleau. A stag of ten tines, you see, and the hounds in full cry, and a gallant band of cavaliers and ladies. Has your Majesty ridden to-day?"
"No. How is it, Francoise, that you have such a heart of ice?"
"I would it were so, sire. Perhaps you have hawked, then?"
"No. But surely no man's love has ever stirred you! And yet you have been a wife."
"A nurse, sire, but never a wife. See the lady in the park! It is surely mademoiselle. I did not know that she had come up from Choisy."
But the king was not to be distracted from his subject.
"You did not love this Scarron, then?" he persisted. "He was old, I have heard, and as lame as some of his verses."
"Do not speak lightly of him, sire. I was grateful to him; I honoured him; I liked him."
"But you did not love him."
"Why should you seek to read the secrets of a woman's heart?"
"You did not love him, Francoise?"
"At least I did my duty towards him."
"Has that nun's heart never yet been touched by love then?"
"Sire, do not question me."
"Has it never--"
"Spare me, sire, I beg of you!"
"But I must ask, for my own peace hangs upon your answer."
"Your words pain me to the soul."
"Have you never, Francoise, felt in your heart some little flicker of the love which glows in mine?" He rose with his hands outstretched, a pleading monarch, but she, with half-turned bead, still shrank away from him.
"Be assured of one thing, sire," said she, "that even if I loved you as no woman ever loved a man yet, I should rather spring from that window on to the stone terraces beneath than ever by word or sign confess as much to you."
"And why, Francoise?"
"Because, sire, it is my highest hope upon earth that I have been chosen to lift up your mind towards loftier things--that mind the greatness and nobility of which none know more than I."
"And is my love so base, then?"
"You have wasted too much of your life and of your thoughts upon woman's love. And now, sire, the years steal on and the day is coming when even you will be called upon to give an account of your actions, and of the innermost thoughts of your heart. I would see you spend the time that is left to you, sire, in building up the Church, in showing a noble example to your subjects, and in repairing any evil which that example may have done in the past."
The king sank back into his chair with a groan. "Forever the same," said he. "Why, you are worse than Father la Chaise and Bossuet."
"Nay, nay," said she gaily, with the quick tact in which she never failed. "I have wearied you, when you have stooped to honour my little room with your presence.