“Never tell women of the dangers you have run when you have come out of them safe and sound,” she said, turning to show herself to Christophe.

“Ah! madame, I have your bill, too,” he said, looking at her with well-played simplicity.

The young queen eyed him, but did not take the paper; and she noticed, though without at the moment drawing any conclusions, that he had taken her bill from his pocket, whereas he had carried Queen Catherine’s in his bosom.  Neither did she find in the lad’s eyes that glance of admiration which her presence invariably excited in all beholders.  But she was so engrossed by her surcoat that, for the moment, she did not ask herself the meaning of such indifference.

“Take the bill, Dayelle,” she said to her waiting-woman; “give it to Monsieur de Versailles (Lomenie) and tell him from me to pay it.”

“Oh! madame,” said Christophe, “if you do not ask the king or monseigneur the grand-master to sign me an order your gracious word will have no effect.”

“You are rather more eager than becomes a subject, my friend,” said Mary Stuart.  “Do you not believe my royal word?”

The king now appeared, in silk stockings and trunk-hose (the breeches of that period), but without his doublet and mantle; he had, however, a rich loose coat of velvet edged with minever.

“Who is the wretch who dares to doubt your word?” he said, overhearing, in spite of his distance, his wife’s last words.

The door of the dressing-room was hidden by the royal bed.  This room was afterwards called “the old cabinet,” to distinguish it from the fine cabinet of pictures which Henri III. constructed at the farther end of the same suite of rooms, next to the hall of the States-general.  It was in the old cabinet that Henri III. hid the murderers when he sent for the Duc de Guise, while he himself remained hidden in the new cabinet during the murder, only emerging in time to see the overbearing subject for whom there were no longer prisons, tribunals, judges, nor even laws, draw his last breath.  Were it not for these terrible circumstances the historian of to-day could hardly trace the former occupation of these cabinets, now filled with soldiers.  A quartermaster writes to his mistress on the very spot where the pensive Catherine once decided on her course between the parties.

“Come with me, my friend,” said the queen-mother, “and I will see that you are paid.  Commerce must live, and money is its backbone.”

“Go, my lad,” cried the young queen, laughing; “my august mother knows more than I do about commerce.”

Catherine was about to leave the room without replying to this last taunt; but she remembered that her indifference to it might provoke suspicion, and she answered hastily:—­

“But you, my dear, understand the business of love.”

Then she descended to her own apartments.

“Put away these furs, Dayelle, and let us go to the Council, monsieur,” said Mary to the young king, enchanted with the opportunity of deciding in the absence of the queen-mother so important a question as the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom.