contempt. "You profess one thing and do another."

"As for example?"

"For example!" she replied, with a scornful laugh. "How many
times have you told me that you left women, and intrigues in
which women had part, on one side?"

I bowed.

"And now I find you--you and that Perrot, that creature!--
intriguing against me; intriguing with some country chit to--"

"Madame!" I said, cutting her short with a show of temper,
"where did you get this?"

"Do you deny it?" she cried, looking so beautiful in her anger
that I thought I had never seen her to such advantage. "Do you
deny that you took the King there?"

"No. Certainly I took the King there."

"To Perrot's? You admit it?"

"Certainly," I said, "for a purpose."

"A purpose!" she cried with withering scorn. "Was it not that
the King might see that girl?"

"Yes," I replied patiently, "it was."