"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
happily blended that no conceivable beauty of feature, uninspired
by sensibility, could vie with them. "Good friend, I have
sinned," she said. "But I am a woman, and I love. Pardon me.
As for your PROTEGEE, from this moment she is mine also. I will
speak to the King this evening; and if he does not at once,"
Madame continued, with a gleam of archness that showed me that
she was not yet free from suspicion, "issue his commands to M. de
Perrot, I shall know what to think; and his Majesty will
suffer!"
I thanked her profusely, and in fitting terms.
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