Bassompierre dropped her hand with a low bow, and turned to
the Queen. "Madame," he said, "this, I find, is the lady whom I
saw on the Terrace when Madame Paleotti was so good as to invite
me to walk on the Bois-le-Roi road. For the rest, your Majesty
may draw your conclusions."
It was easy to see that the Queen had already drawn them; but,
for the moment, the unfortunate girl was saved from her wrath.
With a low cry, Mademoiselle Paleotti did that which she would
have done a little before, had she been wise, and swooned on the
floor.
I turned to look at the King, and found him gone. He had
withdrawn unseen in the first confusion of the surprise; nor did
I dare at once to interrupt him, or intrude on the strange
mixture of regret and relief, wrath and longing, that probably
possessed him in the silence of his closet. It was enough for me
that the Italians' plot had failed, and that the danger of a
rupture between the King and Queen, which these miscreants
desired, and I had felt to be so great and imminent, was, for
this time, overpast.
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