Chapter 48 - Page 2

banishment with all the ladies of the court who might have the least
pretensions to the king's heart, beginning with Madame and finishing with
the queen. In case the king should show himself obstinate in his fancy,
then he would not produce the damaging information he had obtained, but
would let La Valliere know that this damaging information was carefully
preserved in a secret drawer of her confidant's memory. In this manner,
he would be able to air his generosity before the poor girl's eyes, and
so keep her in constant suspense between gratitude and apprehension, to
such an extent as to make her a friend at court, interested, as an
accomplice, in trying to make his fortune, while she was making her own.
As far as concerned the day when the bombshell of the past should burst,
if ever there were any occasion, Saint-Aignan promised himself that he
would by that time have taken all possible precautions, and would pretend
an entire ignorance of the matter to the king; while, with regard to La
Valliere, he would still have an opportunity of being considered the
personification of generosity. It was with such ideas as these, which
the fire of covetousness had caused to dawn in half an hour, that Saint-
Aignan, the son of earth, as La Fontaine would have said, determined to
get De Guiche into conversation: in other words, to trouble him in his
happiness - a happiness of which Saint-Aignan was quite ignorant. It was
long past one o'clock in the morning when Saint-Aignan perceived De
Guiche, standing, motionless, leaning against the trunk of a tree, with
his eyes fastened upon the lighted window, - the sleepiest hour of night-
time, which painters crown with myrtles and budding poppies, the hour
when eyes are heavy, hearts throb, and heads feel dull and languid - an
hour which casts upon the day which has passed away a look of regret,
while addressing a loving greeting to the dawning light. For De Guiche
it was the dawn of unutterable happiness; he would have bestowed a
treasure upon a beggar, had one stood before him, to secure him
uninterrupted indulgence in his dreams. It was precisely at this hour
that Saint-Aignan, badly advised, - selfishness always counsels badly, -
came and struck him on the shoulder, at the very moment he was murmuring
a word, or rather a name.

"Ah!" he cried loudly, "I was looking for you."

"For me?" said De Guiche, starting.

"Yes; and I find you seemingly moon-struck. Is it likely, my dear comte,
you have been attacked by a poetical malady, and are making verses?"

The young man forced a smile upon his lips, while a thousand conflicting
sensations were muttering defiance of Saint-Aignan in the deep recesses
of his heart. "Perhaps," he said. "But by what happy chance - "