I will do what I can."
Fortunately the King was not there, and Madame would receive me.
I thought, indeed, that her doors flew open with suspicious
speed, and that way was made for me more easily than usual; and I
soon found that I was not wrong in the inference I drew from
these facts. For when I entered her chamber that remarkable
woman, who, whatever her enemies may say, combined with her
beauty a very uncommon degree of sense and discretion, met me
with a low courtesy and a smile of derision. "So," she said, "M.
de Rosny, not satisfied with furnishing me with evidence, gives
me proof."
"How, Madame?" I said; though I well understood.
"By his presence here," she answered. "An hour ago," she
continued, "the King was with me. I had not then the slightest
ground to expect this honour, or I am sure that his Majesty would
have stayed to share it. But I have since seen reason to expect
it, and you observe that I am not unprepared."
She spoke with a sparkling eye, and an expression of the most
lively resentment; so that, had M.
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