“But you are more than the Queen of France.  She has King Charles for the sake of the kingdom only; royal marriages are only politics.”

Marie smiled and made a pretty little grimace as she said:  “Yes, yes, I know that, sire.  And my sonnet, have you written it?”

“Dearest, verses are as difficult to write as treaties of peace; but you shall have them soon.  Ah, me! life is so easy here, I wish I might never leave you.  However, we must send for those Italians and question them. Tete-Dieu!  I thought one Ruggiero in the kingdom was one too many, but it seems there are two.  Now listen, my precious; you don’t lack sense, you would make an excellent lieutenant of police, for you can penetrate things—­”

“But, sire, we women suppose all we fear, and we turn what is probable into truths; that is the whole of our art in a nutshell.”

“Well, help me to sound these men.  Just now all my plans depend on the result of their examination.  Are they innocent?  Are they guilty?  My mother is behind them.”

“I hear Jacob’s voice in the next room,” said Marie.

Jacob was the favorite valet of the king, and the one who accompanied him on all his private excursions.  He now came to ask if it was the king’s good pleasure to speak to the two prisoners.  The king made a sign in the affirmative, and the mistress of the house gave her orders.

“Jacob,” she said, “clear the house of everybody, except the nurse and Monsieur le Dauphin d’Auvergne, who may remain.  As for you, stay in the lower hall; but first, close the windows, draw the curtains of the salon, and light the candles.”

The king’s impatience was so great that while these preparations were being made he sat down upon a raised seat at the corner of a lofty fireplace of white marble in which a bright fire was blazing, placing his pretty mistress by his side.  His portrait, framed in velvet, was over the mantle in place of a mirror.  Charles IX. rested his elbow on the arm of the seat as if to watch the two Florentines the better under cover of his hand.

The shutters closed, and the curtains drawn, Jacob lighted the wax tapers in a tall candelabrum of chiselled silver, which he placed on the table where the Florentines were to stand,—­an object, by the bye, which they would readily recognize as the work of their compatriot, Benvenuto Cellini.  The richness of the room, decorated in the taste of Charles IX., now shone forth.  The red-brown of the tapestries showed to better advantage than by daylight.  The various articles of furniture, delicately made or carved, reflected in their ebony panels the glow of the fire and the sparkle of the lights.  Gilding, soberly applied, shone here and there like eyes, brightening the brown color which prevailed in this nest of love.