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I always envy Diana of Poitiers for having her cypher emblazoned all over that lovely gallery Henri and Diane! Diane and Henri! Ah, me!" "You envy her a kind of notoriety which I do not covet for my wife!" "You always take one au pied de la lettre; but seriously, Madame de Breze was an honest woman compared with the lady who lodges by the Holbein Gate."
And it was within the bounds of possibility that, in his seclusion, he might at length learn to believe in the story of the destruction at La Sablerie, and, wearying of captivity, might yield at length to the persuasions of Diane and her father, and become so far involved with them as to be unable to draw back, or else be so stung by Eustacie's desertion as to accept her rival willingly.
Curiously enough, in this hour of reckoning Philip was an invisible arbiter urging them to generous understanding. Diane was the first to speak. And, in the fashion of Diane since childhood, she bravely plunged into the heart of the thing with glistening eyes. "Carl," she said, "I am very sorry." It was heartfelt apology for the old offense. Carl's face went wildly scarlet.
Yet Diane, knowing that her father trusted to her to learn how far things had gone, and piqued at seeing the transparent little creature, now glowing and smiling with inward bliss, now pale, pensive, sighing, and anxious, and scorning her as too childish for the love that she seemed to affect, was resolved on obtaining confidence from her.
But on the Monday, Diane was able to send an urgent message to her father that he must come to speak with her, for Mdlle. De Nid-de-Merle was extremely ill. She would meet him in the garden after morning mass. There accordingly, when she stepped forth pale, rigid, but stately, with her large fan in her hand to serve as a parasol, she met both him and her brother.
More pretentious is the tomb of Louis, his grandson, erected by his wife Diane de Poitiers, with a significant inscription which the curious may be pleased to figure out for themselves. This noble monument is one of those examples hesitatingly attributed to Jean Goujon. The pièce de résistance is the Renaissance tomb of the Cardinals d'Amboise.
Diane had no doubts now; he had never so spoken to her; nay, perhaps he had had no such cadences in his voice before. It was quite certain that Eustacie was everything to him, she herself nothing; she who might have had any gallant in the court at her feet, but had never seen one whom she could believe in, whose sense of esteem had been first awakened by this stranger lad who despised her.
It is an insult for any one else to speak to me thus! said Eustacie, drawing herself up, and rising to her feet; but she was forced to hold by the back of her chair, and Diane and her father appearing at that moment, she tottered towards the former, and becoming quite passive under the influence of violent dizziness and headache, made no objection to being half led, half carried, through galleries that connected the Hotel de Bourbon with the Louvre.
Her wild words and gestures thrilled him in every pulse and wrung his heart, and it was with a stifled, agitated voice that he said 'God help you and me both, Diane! To do what you ask would would be no saving of either.
And every morning we peel the bed that is, we dispense with a layer of mattress and presto! I have a fresh bed until the hay's gone. We bought a new load this morning." Swept by an irresistible spasm of laughter, Diane stared wildly about the hay-camp. "And Ras?" she begged faintly. "Well," said Philip slowly, "Ras is peculiarly gifted. He can sleep anywhere.
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