back, missed you, and--"

She stopped him by a gesture. "Not here!" she muttered, with suppressed
impatience. "I will tell you outside. Take me--take me out, if you
please, Monsieur, at once!"

He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The group by the doorway
parted; she passed through it, he followed. In a moment the two stood in
the great gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd which had
paraded here an hour before was gone, and the vast echoing apartment,
used at that date as a guard-room, was well-nigh empty. Only at rare
intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess of a door, a couple
talked softly. At the farther end, near the head of the staircase which
led to the hall below, and the courtyard, a group of armed Swiss lounged
on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance up and down, then she turned
to her lover, her face hot with indignation.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did you leave me, if you could
not come back at once? Do you understand, sir," she continued, "that it
was at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this Court, and that
I look to you for protection?"

"Surely," he said. "And--"

"And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guardians for me? Should I
have come or thought of coming to this wedding, but for your promise, and
Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself almost your wife," she
continued warmly, "and secure of your protection, should I have come
within a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, had I my will,
none of our people should have come."