“Ah, sire, you pain me.  You are not yet in the prime of your years, and you speak as though old age were upon you.  In a score of years from now it may be time for folk to say that age has made a change in your life.”

The king winced.  “Who says so?” he cried angrily.

“Oh, sire, it slipped from me unawares.  Think no more of it.  Nobody says so.  Nobody.”

“You are hiding something from me.  Who is it who says this?”

“Oh, do not ask me, sire.”

“You said that it was reported that I had changed my life not through religion, but through stress of years.  Who said so?”

“Oh, sire, it was but foolish court gossip, all unworthy of your attention.  It was but the empty common talk of cavaliers who had nothing else to say to gain a smile from their ladies.”

“The common talk?” Louis flushed crimson.

“Have I, then, grown so aged?  You have known me for nearly twenty years.  Do you see such changes in me?”

“To me, sire, you are as pleasing and as gracious as when you first won the heart of Mademoiselle Tonnay-Charente.”

 The king smiled as he looked at the beautiful woman before him.

“In very truth,” said he, “I can say that there has been no such great change in Mademoiselle Tonnay-Charente either.  But still it is best that we should part, Francoise.”

“If it will add aught to your happiness, sire, I shall go through it, be it to my death.”

“Now that is the proper spirit.”

“You have but to name the place, sire—­Petit Bourg, Chargny, or my own convent of St. Joseph in the Faubourg St. Germain.  What matter where the flower withers, when once the sun has forever turned from it?  At least, the past is my own, and I shall live in the remembrance of the days when none had come between us, and when your sweet love was all my own.  Be happy, sire, be happy, and think no more of what I said about the foolish gossip of the court.  Your life lies in the future.  Mine is in the past.  Adieu, dear sire, adieu!” She threw forward her hands, her eyes dimmed over, and she would have fallen had Louis not sprung forward and caught her in his arms.  Her beautiful head drooped upon his shoulder, her breath was warm upon his cheek, and the subtle scent of her hair was in his nostrils.  His arm, as he held her, rose and fell with her bosom, and he felt her heart, beneath his hand, fluttering like a caged bird.  Her broad white throat was thrown back, her eyes almost closed, her lips just parted enough to show the line of pearly teeth, her beautiful face not three inches from his own.  And then suddenly the eyelids quivered, and the great blue eyes looked up at him, lovingly, appealingly, half deprecating, half challenging, her whole soul in a glance.  Did he move? or was it she?  Who could tell?  But their lips had met in a long kiss, and then in another, and plans and resolutions were streaming away from Louis like autumn leaves in the west wind.