“Perhaps this evening, mademoiselle; at latest, to-morrow.”

Montalais lifted her shoulders in a sigh of vexation.

“No time to get ready!  No time to prepare a single dress!  We are as far behind the fashions as the Poles.  We shall look like portraits from the time of Henry IV.  Ah, monsieur! this is sad news you bring us!”

“But, mesdemoiselles, you will be still beautiful!”

“That’s no news!  Yes, we shall always be beautiful, because nature has made us passable; but we shall be ridiculous, because the fashion will have forgotten us.  Alas! ridiculous!  I shall be thought ridiculous — I!”

“And by whom?” said Louise, innocently.

“By whom?  You are a strange girl, my dear.  Is that a question to put to me?  I mean everybody; I mean the courtiers, the nobles; I mean the king.”

“Pardon me, my good friend; but as here every one is accustomed to see us as we are — "

“Granted; but that is about to change, and we shall be ridiculous, even for Blois; for close to us will be seen the fashions from Paris, and they will perceive that we are in the fashion of Blois!  It is enough to make one despair!”

“Console yourself, mademoiselle.”

“Well, so let it be!  After all, so much the worse for those who do not find me to their taste!” said Montalais, philosophically.

“They would be very difficult to please,” replied Raoul, faithful to his regular system of gallantry.

“Thank you, Monsieur le Vicomte.  We were saying, then, that the king is coming to Blois?”

“With all the court.”

“Mesdemoiselles de Mancini, will they be with them?”

“No, certainly not.”

“But as the king, it is said, cannot do without Mademoiselle Mary?”

“Mademoiselle, the king must do without her.  M. le Cardinal will have it so.  He has exiled his nieces to Brouage.”

“He! — the hypocrite!”

“Hush!” said Louise, pressing a finger on her friend’s rosy lips.

“Bah! nobody can hear me.  I say that old Mazarino Mazarini is a hypocrite, who burns impatiently to make his niece Queen of France.”

“That cannot be, mademoiselle, since M. le Cardinal, on the contrary, had brought about the marriage of his majesty with the Infanta Maria Theresa.”

Montalais looked Raoul full in the face, and said, “And do you Parisians believe in these tales?  Well! we are a little more knowing than you, at Blois.”

“Mademoiselle, if the king goes beyond Poitiers and sets out for Spain; if the articles of the marriage contract are agreed upon by Don Luis de Haro and his eminence, you must plainly perceive that it is not child’s play.”

“All very fine! but the king is king, I suppose?”

“No doubt, mademoiselle; but the cardinal is the cardinal.”

“The king is not a man, then!  And he does not love Mary Mancini?”