He touched his horse with the spur, gave a gambade which took him across to the carriage, and then, sweeping off his hat, he bowed to his horse’s neck; a salute in which he was imitated, though in a somewhat ungainly fashion, by his companion.

“Ha, captain!” said the lady, with no very pleasant face, “we meet again.”

“Fortune has ever been good to me, madame.”

“It was not so this morning.”

“You say truly.  It gave me a hateful duty to perform.”

“And you performed it in a hateful fashion.”

“Nay, madame, what could I do more?”

The lady sneered, and her beautiful face turned as bitter as it could upon occasion.

“You thought that I had no more power with the king.  You thought that my day was past.  No doubt it seemed to you that you might reap favour with the new by being the first to cast a slight upon the old.”

“But, madame—­”

“You may spare your protestations.  I am one who judges by deeds and not by words.  Did you, then, think that my charm had so faded, that any beauty which I ever have had is so withered?”

“Nay, madame, I were blind to think that.”

“Blind as a noontide owl,” said Amos Green with emphasis.

Madame de Montespan arched her eyebrows and glanced at her singular admirer.  “Your friend at least speaks that which he really feels,” said she.  “At four o’clock to-day we shall see whether others are of the same mind; and if they are, then it may be ill for those who mistook what was but a passing shadow for a lasting cloud.”  She cast another vindictive glance at the young guardsman, and rattled on once more upon her way.

“Come on!” cried De Catinat curtly, for his companion was staring open-mouthed after the carriage.  “Have you never seen a woman before?”

“Never such a one as that.”

“Never one with so railing a tongue, I dare swear,” said De Catinat.

“Never one with so lovely a face.  And yet there is a lovely face at the Rue St. Martin also.”

“You seem to have a nice taste in beauty, for all your woodland training.”

“Yes, for I have been cut away from women so much that when I stand before one I feel that she is something tender and sweet and holy.”

“You may find dames at the court who are both tender and sweet, but you will look long, my friend, before you find the holy one.  This one would ruin me if she can, and only because I have done what it was my duty to do.  To keep oneself in this court is like coming down the La Chine Rapids where there is a rock to right, and a rock to left, and another perchance in front, and if you so much as graze one, where are you and your birch canoe?  But our rocks are women, and in our canoe we bear all our worldly fortunes.  Now here is another who would sway me over to her side, and indeed I think it may prove to be the better side too.”