"It is all very wellI will not write to him at all," said the young girl.
"Ah, ah! in good sooth, Montalais is properly punished," cried the jeering brunette, still laughing. "Come, come! let us try another sheet of paper, and finish our dispatch offhand. Good! there is the bell ringing now. By my faith, so much the worse! Madame must wait, or else do without her first maid of honor this morning."
A bell, in fact, did ring; it announced that Madame had finished her toilette, and waited for Monsieur to give her his hand, and conduct her from the salon to the refectory.
This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, invariably fixed at two oclock.
The sound of this bell caused a door to be opened in the offices on the left hand of the court, from which filed two maitres dhotel followed by eight scullions bearing a kind of handbarrow loaded with dishes under silver covers.
One of the maitres dhotel, the first in rank, touched one of the guards, who was snoring on his bench, slightly with his wand; he even carried his kindness so far as to place the halbert which stood against the wall in the hands of the man stupid with sleep, after which the soldier, without explanation, escorted the viande of Monsieur to the refectory, preceded by a page and the two maitres dhotel.
Wherever the viande passed, the soldiers ported arms.
Mademoiselle de Montalais and her companion had watched from their window the details of this ceremony, to which, by the bye, they must have been pretty well accustomed. But they did not look so much from curiosity as to be assured they should not be disturbed. So, guards, scullions, maitres dhotel, and pages having passed, they resumed their places at the table; and the sun, which, through the windowframe, had for an instant fallen upon those two charming countenances, now only shed its light upon the gilliflowers, primroses, and rosetree.
"Bah!" said Mademoiselle de Montalais, taking her place again; "Madame will breakfast very well without me!"
"Oh! Montalais, you will be punished!" replied the other girl, sitting down quietly in hers.
"Punished, indeed!that is to say, deprived of a ride! That is just the way in which I wish to be punished. To go out in the grand coach, perched upon a doorstep; to turn to the left, twist round to the right, over roads full of ruts, where we cannot exceed a league in two hours; and then to come back straight towards the wing of the castle in which is the window of Mary de Medici, so that Madame never fails to say: Could one believe it possible that Mary de Medici should have escaped from that windowfortyseven feet high? The mother of two princes and three princesses! If you call that relaxation, Louise, all I ask is to be punished every day; particularly when my punishment is to remain with you and write such interesting letters as we write!"
"Montalais! Montalais! there are duties to be performed."
"You talk of them very much at your ease, dear child!you, who are left quite free amidst this tedious court. You are the only person that reaps the advantages of them without incurring the trouble,you, who are really more one of Madames maids of honor than I am, because Madame makes her affection for your fatherinlaw glance off upon you; so that you enter this dull house as the birds fly into yonder court, inhaling the air, pecking the flowers, picking up the grain, without having the least service to perform, or the least annoyance to undergo. And you talk to me of duties to be performed! In sooth, my pretty idler, what are your own proper duties, unless to write to the handsome Raoul? And even that you dont do; so that it looks to me as if you likewise were rather negligent of your duties!"
Louise assumed a serious air, leant her chin upon her hand, and, in a tone full of candid remonstrance, "And do you reproach me with my good fortune?" said she. "Can you have the heart to do it? You have a future; you will belong to the court; the king, if he should marry, will require Monsieur to be near his person; you will see splendid fetes, you will see the king, who they say is so handsome, so agreeable!"
"Ay, and still more, I shall see Raoul, who attends upon M. le Prince," added Montalais, maliciously.
"Poor Raoul!" sighed Louise.
"Now is the time to write to him, my pretty dear! Come, begin again, with that famous Monsieur Raoul which figures at the top of the poor torn sheet."
She then held the pen toward her, and with a charming smile encouraged her hand, which quickly traced the words she named.
"What next?" asked the younger of the two girls.
"Why, now write what you think, Louise," replied Montalais.
"Are you quite sure I think of anything?"
"You think of somebody, and that amounts to the same thing, or rather even more."
"Do you think so, Montalais?"
"Louise, Louise, your blue eyes are as deep as the sea I saw at Boulogne last year! No, no, I mistakethe sea is perfidious: your eyes are as deep as the azure yonderlook!over our heads!"