"He did not like to admit that he had lost it. A lost letter may be found; and, indeed, I found it in the Marble Court at Versailles. I took good care not to restore it to the duke, for I knew your eminence was ill-disposed toward me. If you were going through the woods and expected highwaymen to attack you, and you found a loaded pistol, would you not pick it up to use it? A man would be an idiot not to do so."
The cardinal felt giddy and leaned on the window-sill. After hesitation, during which the count watched the play of his features, he said:
"Granted thus. But it shall never be said that a prince of my line yielded to the threats of a mountebank. Though this letter may have been lost, and found, and will be shown to the dauphiness herself, and may ruin me as a politician, I will stand to it that I am still a loyal subject and a faithful ambassador. I will speak the truth--that I thought the alliance injurious to the interests of my country, and let it defend me or blame me."
"But what will be the answer of this faithful subject and loyal envoy if somebody asserts that this gallant young beau of an ambassador, never doubting his winning all before him with his title of prince and name of Rohan, did not say this from any opinion that the alliance would be hurtful to his country, but because--being graciously welcomed by Marie Antoinette--this coxcomb of an envoy had the vanity to think the feast was fitter for Jack than his master?"
"He would deny; for of this feeling which you pretend to have existed, no proof can be exhibited."
"You are wrong; the token is in the dauphiness' coldness toward you."
"Believe me, prince," went on the count, "instead of quarreling, as we should have done, only for my having more prudence than you, we had better be friends--good ones, for such do one another service."
"Have I ever asked aught of your lordship?"
"Just there you are wrong; for you might have called on me during the two days you spent in town. You cannot conceal from a sorcerer what you have been about. You left the Austrian princess at Soissons, whence you rushed posthaste to Paris, where you dunned your friends for help, which they all refused you. This left you desperate."