Moreover, Annora was hovering over me, looking perfectly innocent,
and intent on making me rest, and feeding me upon possets, and
burning to hear my story. Then came my mother from St. Germain,
having received a courier who had been dispatched at dawn. She
embraced me and wept over me, and yet--and yet I think there mingled
with her feeling something of vexation and annoyance. If I were to
be carried off at all by a man of rank and station, it would have
been almost better if he had succeeded in marrying me than that the
affair should be a mere matter of gossip. Certainly, that my rescue
should be owing to one of the factious lawyers, and to that
mischievous party leader the Coadjutor, was an unmixed grievance.
After all my follies at Nid de Merle, I was quite sufficiently in ill
odour with the Court to make it needful to be very careful. If I had
only waited till morning, the Queen would have taken care to deliver
me without my having given a triumph which the Frondeurs would not
fail to make the most of.
'Where should I have been in the morning?' I said. 'Did she not know
that the horrible wager related to midnight?'
She supposed any woman could take care of herself. At any rate I had
contrived to offend everybody. The Prince was paramount at Court,
and carried all before him. Mademoiselle, in her devotion to him,
and the Queen-Regent would never forgive my trafficking with the
Frondeurs.
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