"Why so?"
"You know why better than any one else, since you caught me on the wall paying my addresses to Mademoiselle de Montalais; it would, therefore, be an excess of kindness, on my part, you will admit, since I am paying my attentions to her, to open the door of her room to you."
"But who told you it was on her account I asked you for the key?"
"For whom, then?"
"She does not lodge there alone, I suppose?"
"No, certainly; for Mademoiselle de la Valliere shares her rooms with her; but, really, you have nothing more to do with Mademoiselle de la Valliere than with Mademoiselle de Montalais, and there are only two men to whom I would give this key; to M. de Bragelonne, if he begged me to give it him, and to the king if he ordered me to do so."
"In that case, give me the key, monsieur, I order you to do so," said the king, advancing from the obscurity, and partially opening his cloak. "Mademoiselle de Montalais will step down to talk with you, while we go upstairs to Mademoiselle de la Valliere, for, in fact, it is she only whom we require."
"The king," exclaimed Malicorne, bowing down to the very ground.
"Yes, the king," said Louis, smiling, "the king, who is as pleased with your resistance as with your capitulation. Rise, monsieur, and render us the service we request of you."
"I obey your majesty," said Malicorne, leading the way up the staircase.
"Get Mademoiselle de Montalais to come down," said the king, "and do not breathe a word to her of my visit."
Malicorne bowed in sign of obedience, and proceeded up the staircase. But the king, after a hasty reflection, followed him, and that, too, with such rapidity, that although Malicorne was already more than half-way up the staircase, the king reached the room at the same moment he did. He then observed by the door which remained half-opened behind Malicorne, La Valliere, sitting in an armchair with her head thrown back, and in the opposite corner Montalais, who, in her dressing-gown, was standing before a looking-glass, engaged in arranging her hair, and parleying all the while with Malicorne. The king hurriedly opened the door, and entered the room. Montalais called out at the noise made by the opening of the door, and, recognizing the king, made her escape. La Valliere rose from her seat, like a dead person who had been galvanized, and then fell back again in her armchair. The king advanced slowly toward her.
"You wished for an audience, I believe," he said, coldly; "I am ready to hear you. Speak."
Saint-Aignan, faithful to his character of being deaf, blind, and dumb, had stationed himself in a corner of the door, upon a stool which he fortuitously found there. Concealed by the tapestry which covered the doorway, and leaning his back against the wall, he could in this way listen without been seen; resigning himself to the post of a good watch-dog, who patiently waits and watches without ever getting in his master's way.
La Valliere, terror-stricken at the king's irritated aspect, again rose a second time, and assuming a posture of humility and entreaty, murmured, "Forgive me, sire."
"What need is there for my forgiveness?" asked Louis.
"Sire, I have been guilty of a great fault; nay, more than a great fault, a great crime."
"You?"
"Sire, I have offended your majesty."
"Not the slightest degree in the world," replied Louis XIV.
"I implore you, sire, not to maintain toward me that terrible seriousness of manner which reveals your majesty's just anger. I feel I have offended you, sire; but I wish to explain to you how it was that I have not offended you of my own accord."
"In the first place," said the king, "in what way can you possibly have offended me? I cannot perceive how. Surely not on account of a young girl's harmless and very innocent jest? You turned the credulity of a young man into ridicule—it was very natural to do so; any other woman in your place would have done the same."
"Oh! your majesty overwhelms me by your remark."
"Why so?"
"Because if I had been the author of the jest, it would not have been innocent."
"Well! is that all you had to say to me in soliciting an audience?" said the king, as though about to turn away.
Thereupon, La Valliere, in an abrupt and broken voice, her eyes dried up by the fire of her tears, made a step toward the king, and said, "Did your majesty hear everything?"
"Everything, what?"
"Everything I said beneath the royal oak."
"I did not lose a syllable."
"And when your majesty heard me, you were able to think I had abused your credulity."
"Credulity; yes, indeed you have selected the very word."
"And your majesty did not suppose that a poor girl like myself might possibly be compelled to submit to the will of others."
"Forgive me," returned the king; "but I shall never be able to understand that she, who of her own free will could express herself so unreservedly beneath the royal oak, would allow herself to be influenced to such an extent by the direction of others."
"But the threat held out against me, sire."
"Threat! who threatened you—who dared to threaten you?"
"They who have the right to do so, sire."
"I do not recognize any one as possessing the right to threaten in my kingdom."
"Forgive me, sire, but near your majesty, even, there are persons sufficiently high in position to have, or to believe that they possess, the right of injuring a young girl, without fortune, and possessing only her reputation."
"In what way injure her?"
"In depriving her of her reputation, by disgracefully expelling her from the court."
"Oh! Mademoiselle de la Valliere," said the king, bitterly, "I prefer those persons who exculpate themselves without incriminating others."
"Sire!"
"Yes; and I confess that I greatly regret to perceive that an easy justification, as your own might be, should have been complicated in my presence by a tissue of reproaches and imputations against others."
"And which you do not believe?" exclaimed La Valliere. The king remained silent.
"Nay, but tell me!" repeated La Valliere, vehemently.
"I regret to confess it," replied the king, bowing coldly.
The young girl uttered a deep groan, striking her hands together in despair. "You do not believe me, then," she said to the king, who still remained silent, while poor La Valliere's features became visibly changed at his continued silence. "Therefore, you believe," she said, "that I settled this ridiculous, this infamous plot, of trifling, in so shameless a manner, with your majesty."
"Nay," said the king, "it is neither ridiculous nor infamous, it is not even a plot; it is merely a jest, more or less amusing, and nothing more."
"Oh!" murmured the young girl, "the king does not, and will not, believe me, then?"
"No, indeed, I will not believe you," said the king. "Besides, in point of fact, what can be more natural? The king, you argue, follows me, listens to me, watches me; the king wishes perhaps to amuse himself at my expense, I will amuse myself at his, and as the king is very tender-hearted, I will take his heart by storm."
La Valliere hid her face in her hands, as she stifled her sobs. The king continued most pitilessly, he revenged himself upon the poor victim before him for all that he had himself suffered.
"Let us invent, then, this story of my loving him and preferring him to others. The king is so simple and so conceited that he will believe me; and then we can go and tell others how credulous