"Then your Majesty will not come?"

"I should prefer not."

"In spite of your promise!"

"Madame!"

"You will break your word!"

"Silence, madame; this is intolerable."

"It is indeed intolerable!" cried the angry lady, throwing all
discretion to the winds. "Oh, I am not afraid of you, sire. I have
loved you, but I have never feared you. I leave you here. I leave you
with your conscience and your--your lady confessor. But one word of
truth you shall hear before I go. You have been false to your wife, and
you have been false to your mistress, but it is only now that I find
that you can be false also to your word." She swept him an indignant
courtesy, and glided, with head erect, out of the room.

The king sprang from his chair as if he had been stung. Accustomed as
he was to his gentle little wife, and the even gentler La Valliere, such
language as this had never before intruded itself upon the royal ears.
It was like a physical blow to him. He felt stunned, humiliated,
bewildered, by so unwonted a sensation. What odour was this which
mingled for the first time with the incense amid which he lived?
And then his whole soul rose up in anger at her, at the woman who had
dared to raise her voice against him. That she should be jealous of and
insult another woman, that was excusable. It was, in fact, an indirect
compliment to himself. But that she should turn upon him, as if they
were merely man and woman, instead of monarch and subject, that was too
much. He gave an inarticulate cry of rage, and rushed to the door.

"Sire!" Madame de Maintenon, who had watched keenly the swift play of
his emotions over his expressive face, took two quick steps forward, and
laid her hand upon his arm.

"I will go after her."

"And why, sire?"

To forbid her the court."

"But, sire--"

"You heard her! It is infamous! I shall go."

"But, sire, could you not write?"

"No, no; I shall see her." He pulled open the door.

"Oh, sire, be firm, then!" It was with an anxious face that she watched
him start off, walking rapidly, with angry gestures, down the corridor.
Then she turned back, and dropping upon her knees on the _prie-dieu_,
bowed her head in prayer for the king, for herself, and for France.

De Catinat, the guardsman, had employed himself in showing his young
friend from over the water all the wonders of the great palace, which
the other had examined keenly, and had criticised or admired with an
indep