"No; your duty was to flee from Versailles; to do as agreed. To obey me; to act like all my friends--who are afraid of my ill fortune. Your duty is to sacrifice nothing for me; to keep away from me."
"From Paris, boiling with excitement, intoxicated and bathed in blood."
The Queen covered her face with her hands.
"Alas, not one, not even you, brings me good news from that quarter."
"In such a time ask but one thing of the messengers: truth."
"You have an upright soul, my friend, a brave heart. Do not tell me the truth, at present, for mercy's sake. You arrive when my heart is breaking; for the first time my friends overwhelm me with this truthfulness always used by you. It is impossible for me to trifle with it any longer: it flashes out in everything. In the red sky, the air filled with ominous sounds, the courtiers' faces, now pale and serious. No, count, for the first time in your life, do not tell me the truth."
"No, but come and sit beside me. George, your brow is burning."
"Your hand is cold," for she was pressing it between hers.
"My heart has been touched by the chill of death," he replied.
"Poor George! I told you we had best forget. Let me no longer be the Queen, hated and threatened; but just the woman. What is the realm, the universe to me, whom one loving heart suffices?"
The count went down on one knee and kissed the hem of her dress with the reverence of the ancients for a goddess.
"Oh, count, my only friend, do you know what Countess Diana is doing?"
"He guesses rightly," muttered the Queen, "how could he tell that?"
"Oh, goodness--anything can be surmised at this hour."
"But if flight is so natural, why do not you and your family take it?"
"I do not do so, in the first place, because I have pledged myself not only to your Majesty, but to myself, not to leave you during the storm. My brothers stay, as they regulate their movements by mine: and my wife remains because she loves your Majesty most sincerely, I believe."
"Yes, Andrea has a most noble heart," said the lady with visible coldness.
"That is why she will not quit Versailles," replied Charny.
"It follows that I shall always have you near me," went on the Queen, in the same glacial tone, awarded to prevent the hearer telling whether she felt disdain or jealousy.