She stared at me. "And you can tell me that to my face!" she
said.

"I see no reason why I should not, Madame," I replied easily--"I
cannot conceive why you should object to the union--and many why
you should desire to see two people happy. Otherwise, if I had
had any idea, even the slightest, that the matter was obnoxious
to you, I would not have engaged in it."

"But--what was your purpose then?" she muttered, in a different
tone.

"To obtain the King's good word with M. de Perrot to permit the
marriage of his son with his niece; who is, unfortunately,
without a portion."

Madame uttered a low exclamation, and her eyes wandering from me,
she took up--as if her thoughts strayed also--a small ornament;
from the table beside her. "Ah!" she said, looking at it
closely. "But Perrot's son did he know of this?"

"No," I answered, smiling. "But I have heard that women can love
as well as men, Madame. And sometimes ingenuously."

I heard her draw a sigh of relief, and I knew that if I had not
persuaded her I had accomplished much. I was not surprised when,
laying down the ornament with which she had been toying, she
turned on me one of those rare smiles to which the King could
refuse nothing; and wherein wit, tenderness, and gaiety were so