Was she thinking of the Englishman of whom she had spoken?  Delicacy forbade my asking the question.  He had been a man, according to her own testimony.  Where was he now?  Her voice had a ring of earnestness in it I had never heard before, and this arraignment of her own life and of her old friends surprised me.  Now she seemed lost in a revery, from which I forebore to arouse her.

“I have often tried to picture your life,” I said at last.

“You?” she answered, turning her head quickly.

“Ever since I first saw the miniature,” I said.  “Monsieur de St. Gre told me some things, and afterwards I read ‘Le Mariage de Figaro,’ and some novels, and some memoirs of the old courts which I got in Philadelphia last winter.  I used to think of you as I rode over the mountains, as I sat reading in my room of an evening.  I used to picture you in the palaces amusing the Queen and making the Cardinals laugh.  And then I used to wonder—­what became of you—­and whether—­” I hesitated, overwhelmed by a sudden confusion, for she was gazing at me fixedly with a look I did not understand.

“You used to think of that?” she said.

“I never thought to see you,” I answered.

Laughter came into her eyes, and I knew that I had not vexed her.  But I had spoken stupidly, and I reddened.

“I had a quick tongue,” she said, as though to cover my confusion.  “I have it yet.  In those days misfortune had not curbed it.  I had not learned to be charitable.  When I was a child I used to ride with my father to the hunts at St. Gre, and I was too ready to pick out the weaknesses of his guests.  If one of the company had a trick or a mannerism, I never failed to catch it.  People used to ask me what I thought of such and such a person, and that was bad for me.  I saw their failings and pretensions, but I ignored my own.  It was the same at Abbaye aux Bois, the convent where I was taught.  When I was presented to her Majesty I saw why people hated her.  They did not understand her.  She was a woman with a large heart, with charity.  Some did not suspect this, others forgot it because they beheld a brilliant personage with keen perceptions who would not submit to being bored.  Her Majesty made many enemies at court of persons who believed she was making fun of them.  There was a dress-maker at the French court called Mademoiselle Bertin, who became ridiculously pretentious because the Queen allowed the woman to dress her hair in private.  Bertin used to put on airs with the nobility when they came to order gowns, and she was very rude to me when I went for my court dress.  There was a ball at Versailles the day I was presented, and my father told me that her Majesty wished to speak with me.  I was very much frightened.  The Queen was standing with her back to the mirror, the Duchesse de Polignac and some other ladies beside her, when my father brought me up, and her Majesty was smiling.

“‘What did you say to Bertin, Mademoiselle?’ she asked.