“Threaten me not, Charles de Bourbon,” she rejoined. “But listen. I do not deny the charges you have brought against me. Had you submitted to the first blow – had you sued for grace – all the rest would have been spared you.”
“Sue for grace, madame! Sue for grace to you!” cried the Constable. “You know little of Charles de Bourbon if you think he would so demean himself.”
“Hear me out,” said the duchess. “I was determined to conquer your pride – to bring you to my feet – but you compelled me, by your inflexibility, to have recourse to harsher measures than I originally intended. You have to thank yourself, Charles, for the punishment you have endured. But throughout it all, I have suffered more than you – far more.”
“I am glad to hear it,” remarked Bourbon. “But I doubt it.
“When I have seemed to hate you most, I have loved you best, Charles. My heart was torn by conflicting emotions – rage, grief, love. You had spurned my love, and few women could pardon such an affront. But I could forgive it, and would have forgiven you, if you had returned to me. But you ever held aloof. You forced me to go on. Blow after blow was dealt, in the hope that each might be the last. Oh, how it would have joyed me to restore you to the government of the Milanese! – to have ordered the payment of your pensions! – to have given you the command of the army of Picardy! But all can now be set right.”
“Impossible, madame,” rejoined Bourbon.
“Say not so, Charles. Since you have been made aware of my motives, you must view my conduct in a different light. Let the past be forgotten. Let all animosity be at an end between us. Henceforth, let us be friends – nay, more than friends. Do you not understand me, Charles?”
“I would fain not do so, madame,” rejoined Bourbon, averting his gaze from her.
“Let not resentment blind you to your own interests, Charles,” pursued the duchess. “You have felt my power to injure you. Henceforth, you shall find how well I can serve you. I can restore all you have lost – honours, commands, pensions. Nay, I can raise you higher than you have ever risen, and load you with wealth beyond your conception. All this I can do – and will do. Kneel down at my feet, Charles – not to supplicate my pardon, for that you have – but to renew those protestations of love which you once offered me. Kneel, I conjure you.”
But Bourbon remained inflexible.
“My knees would refuse their office were I inclined to comply,” he said.
“Then I must perforce take on myself the part which of right belongs to you, Charles. By the death of your spouse, Suzanne de Bourbon, you are free to wed again. I offer you my hand. You ought to solicit it on your bended knee – but no matter! – I offer it to you.”
“Is the king aware of your design, madame? Does he approve of the step?” demanded Bourbon.
“The king sent for you at my instance to arrange the marriage,” rejoined the duchess.
“His majesty’s complaisance is carried to the extremest point,” said Bourbon. “But he seems to have taken my assent for granted – as you have done, madame.”
“We could not doubt it,” said the duchess, smiling confidently. “The proposed union offers you too many advantages to be rejected.”
“Enumerate them, I pray you?” said Bourbon. “First, then, the marriage will amicably settle the process between us, and will operate like a decree in your favour, for you will retain your possessions. Next, I shall bring you a royal dowry. As my husband, you will be second only in authority to the king. Nay, you will have greater power than he. You will find Louise de Savoi a very different wife from Suzanne de Bourbon. I will enrich you – I will augment your power – I will aggrandise you. You shall be king – all but in name.”
“I doubt not your power to accomplish all this, madame,” rejoined Bourbon. “I know your unbounded influence over your son. I know you have filled your coffers from the royal treasures – as was proved by the confession of the wretched Semblençay, who gave you the five million ducats he ought to have sent to Italy, and who paid the penalty of his folly with his life. I know that in effect you have already despoiled me of my possessions —
“Dwell on these matters no longer, Charles,” she interrupted. “Forget the past, and look forward to a brilliant future. My offer is accepted? – speak!”
“You deem me so much abased that I must needs accept it, madame,” said Bourbon. “But I am not yet fallen so low. I reject it – scornfully reject it.”
“Reflect, Charles – reflect before you come to this fatal determination, for fatal it will be to you,” she cried. “You are ruined – irretrievably ruined – if you wed me not.”
“I would sooner be degraded from my rank – I would sooner mount the scaffold, than wed you, Louise de Savoie, my some time mistress, but now my bitter enemy,” said the Constable, fiercely.
“Bourbon, I swear to you I am not your enemy,” cried the duchess. “Do not regard me with scorn and hate. Look at me as a loving woman. My heart – my soul is yours. Since you will not stoop to me, I will do what I never yet did to man – I will kneel to you.”
And she threw herself before him, and clasped his hands.
“Forgive me, Charles!” she cried, in half suffocated accents. “Forgive me for the great love I have ever borne you.”
Notwithstanding the supplications and tears of the duchess, there was no symptom of yielding in Bourbon. With almost rudeness, he said, “Arise, madame. It is useless to prolong this interview. Farewell!”
“Stay, I command you, Charles de Bourbon,” she said, rousing all her dignity. “For a moment I had forgotten myself, but your barbarous conduct has restored me. Henceforward I will banish your image from my breast, or only retain it there to animate my vengeance. Your possessions shall be at once confiscated. I will make you a beggar, and then see if you can find a wife among the meanest of my court dames.”
“I shall not need to do so, madame,” rejoined Bourbon, sternly. “Let it confound you to learn that the Emperor Charles V has offered me in marriage his sister Leanor, widow of the late King of Portugal.
“The Emperor has offered you his sister?” exclaimed the duchess. “It is false – it is false!”
“You will find it true, madame,” said Bourbon, with a contemptuous smile.
“You shall never wed her,” cried the duchess. “If you reject me, you shall wed no one else.”
“These threats are idle, madame,” rejoined Bourbon, scornfully. “I laugh at your impotent malice. You have wreaked your vengeance to the utmost. But you will never be able to subdue me to your will.”
“Traitor and villain, I see through your designs!” cried the duchess. “You meditate reprisals through the enemies of your country. But I will effectually crush you. If your treasonable practices be proved, I will have your head – ay, your head, Charles de Bourbon.”
“I have no fear for my head,” laughed Bourbon, disdainfully. “It is safe enough, even though I am in the king’s palace at Fontainebleau.”
“A moment, Charles!” cried the duchess, suddenly relapsing into tenderness, and making an effort to detain him. “Are we to part thus?”
“How otherwise should we separate, madame, than with threats on your part –