The queen laughed again. "Had you not better take him out first,
sir," she said scornfully, "and tell him what to say?"
"'Fore God, madame," the King cried passionately, "you try me too
far! Have I not told you a hundred times, and sworn to you, that
I did not give Madame de Verneuil this key?"
"If you did not give her that," the queen muttered sullenly,
picking at the silken coverlet which lay on her feet, "you have
given her all else. You cannot deny it."
Henry let a gesture of despair escape him. "Are we to go back to
that?" he said. Then turning to me, "Tell her," he said between
his teeth; "and tell me. VENTRE SAINT GRIS--are you dumb, man?"
Discerning nothing for it at the moment save to bow before this
storm, which had arisen so suddenly, and from a quarter the least
expected, I hastened to comply. I had not proceeded far with my
story, however--which fell short, of course, of explaining how
the key came to be in Madame de Verneuil's hands--before I saw
that it won no credence with the queen, but rather confirmed her
in her belief that the King had given to another what he had
denied to her.
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