“Certainly, mademoiselle.  And how is Madame, your mistress?”

“Oh, her director has been with her all the morning, and his talk is very, very good; but it is also very, very sad.  We are not very cheerful when Monsieur Godet has been to see us.  But I forget monsieur is a Huguenot, and knows nothing of directors.”

“Oh, but I do not trouble about such differences.  I let the Sorbonne and Geneva fight it out between them.  Yet a man must stand by his family, you know.”

“Ah! if Monsieur could talk to Madame de Maintenon a little!  She would convert him.”

“I would rather talk to Mademoiselle Nanon, but if—­”

“Oh!” There was an exclamation, a whisk of dark skirts, and the soubrette had disappeared down a side passage.

Along the broad, lighted corridor was gliding a very stately and beautiful lady, tall, graceful, and exceedingly haughty.  She was richly clad in a bodice of gold-coloured camlet and a skirt of gray silk trimmed with gold and silver lace.  A handkerchief of priceless Genoa point half hid and half revealed her beautiful throat, and was fastened in front by a cluster of pearls, while a rope of the same, each one worth a bourgeois’ income, was coiled in and out through her luxuriant hair.  The lady was past her first youth, it is true, but the magnificent curves of her queenly figure, the purity of her complexion, the brightness of her deep-lashed blue eyes and the clear regularity of her features enabled her still to claim to be the most handsome as well as the most sharp-tongued woman in the court of France.  So beautiful was her bearing, the carriage of her dainty head upon her proud white neck, and the sweep of her stately walk, that the young officer’s fears were overpowered in his admiration, and he found it hard, as he raised his hand in salute, to retain the firm countenance which his duties demanded.

“Ah, it is Captain de Catinat,” said Madame de Montespan, with a smile which was more embarrassing to him than any frown could have been.

“Your humble servant, marquise.”

“I am fortunate in finding a friend here, for there has been some ridiculous mistake this morning.”

“I am concerned to hear it.”

“It was about my brother, Monsieur de Vivonne.  It is almost too laughable to mention, but he was actually refused admission to the lever.”

“It was my misfortune to have to refuse him, madame.”

“You, Captain de Catinat?  And by what right?” She had drawn up her superb figure, and her large blue eyes were blazing with indignant astonishment.

“The king’s order, madame.”

“The king!  Is it likely that the king would cast a public slight upon my family?  From whom had you this preposterous order?”

“Direct from the king through Bontems.”

“Absurd!  Do you think that the king would venture to exclude a Mortemart through the mouth of a valet?  You have been dreaming, captain.”