the ladies who entered with the
Queen or followed her, spread through the apartments; and soon soft
music sounded in one of the saloons--a gentle accompaniment to the
thousand private conversations carried on round the play tables.

Near the Queen passed, saluting her, a young newly married couple--the
happy Chabot and the beautiful Duchesse de Rohan. They seemed to
shun the crowd, and to seek apart a moment to speak to each other of
themselves. Every one received them with a smile and looked after them
with envy. Their happiness was expressed as strongly in the countenances
of others as in their own.

Marie followed them with her eyes. "Still they are happy," she whispered
to the Queen, remembering the censure which in her hearing had been
thrown upon the match.

But without answering, Anne of Austria, fearful that in the crowd some
inconsiderate expression might inform her young friend of the mournful
event so interesting to her, placed herself with Marie behind the King.
Monsieur, the Prince-Palatine, and the Duc de Bouillon came to speak to
her with a gay and lively air. The second, however, casting upon Marie a
severe and scrutinizing glance, said to her:

"Madame la Princesse, you are most surprisingly beautiful and gay this
evening."

She was confused at these words, and at seeing the speaker walk away
with a sombre air. She addressed herself to the Duc d'Orleans, who did
not answer, and seemed not to hear her. Marie looked at the Queen, and
thought she remarked paleness and disquiet on her features. Meantime, no
one ventured to approach the minister, who was deliberately meditating
his moves. Mazarin alone, leaning over his chair, followed all the
strokes with a servile attention, giving gestures of admiration every
time that the Cardinal played. Application to the game seemed to have
dissipated for a moment the cloud that usually shaded the minister's
brow. He had just advanced a tower, which placed Louis's king in that
false position which is called "stalemate,"--a situation in which the
ebony king, without being personally attacked, can neither advance nor
retire in any direction. The Cardinal, raising his eyes, looked at his
adversary and smiled with one corner of his mouth, not being able
to avoid a secret analogy. Then, observing the dim eyes and dying
countenance of the Prince, he whispered to Mazarin:

"Faith, I think he'll go before me. He is greatly changed."

At the same time he himself was s