"I have to return your Highness a thousand thanks," replied De Blenau; "but as far as innocence can give security, I have no reason to fear."
"Innocence is nothing here," rejoined the lady. "But you are the best judge, Monsieur de Blenau. I sent Coligni to warn you, and taking an opportunity of escaping from the supper-table, came to request that you will offer my humble duty to the Queen, and assure her that Marie de Bourbon is ever hers. But here is some one coming--Good God, it is Chavigni!"
As she spoke, Chavigni came rapidly upon them. Mademoiselle de Bourbon drew down her veil, and De Blenau placed himself between her and the Statesman, who, affecting an excess of gaiety, totally foreign to his natural character, began to rally the Count upon what he termed his gallantry. "So, Monsieur de Blenau," cried he, "already paying your devoirs to our Parisian dames. Nay, I must offer my compliments to your fair lady on her conquest;" and he endeavoured to pass the Count towards Mademoiselle de Bourbon.
De Blenau drew his sword. "Stand off, Sir," exclaimed he, "or by Heaven you are a dead man!" And the point came flashing so near Chavigni's breast, that he was fain to start back a step or two. The lady seized the opportunity to pass him, for the palisade of the garden had prevented her escaping the other way. Chavigni attempted to follow, but De Blenau caught his arm, and held him with a grasp of iron.
"Not one step, Sir!" cried he. "Monsieur de Chavigni, you have strangely forgot yourself. How is it you presume, Sir, to interrupt my conversation with any one? And let me ask, what affair it is of yours, if a lady chose to give me five minutes of her company even here! You have slackened your gallantry not a little."
"But was the Cardinal's garden a place fitted for such love stories?" demanded Chavigni, feeling, at the same time, very sure that the conversation he had interrupted had not been of love; for in those days politics and faction divided the heart of a Frenchwoman with gallantry, and, instead of quarrelling for the empire of her breast, these apparently opposite passions went hand in hand together; and exempt from the more serious dangers incurred by the other sex in similar enterprises, women were often the most active agents and zealous partisans in the factions and conspiracies of the times.