‘What a bare, rude world yours must be,’ she said, shivering.  ’And no weak ones in it!  Only the strong can dare to be true.’

‘Truth is strength!’ said Berenger.  ’For example:  I see yonder a face without bodily strength, perhaps, but with perfect candour.’

’Ah! some Huguenot girl of Madame Catherine’s, no doubt—­from the depths of Languedoc, and dressed like a fright.’

‘No, no; the young girl behind the pale, yellow-haired lady.’

‘Comment, Monsieur.  Do you not yet know the young Queen?’

’But who is the young demoiselle!—­she with the superb black eyes, and the ruby rose in her black hair?’

’Take care, sir, do you not know I have still a right to be jealous?’ she said, blushing, bridling, and laughing.

But this pull on the cords made him the more resolved; he would not be turned from his purpose.  ‘Who is she?’ he repeated; ’have I ever seen her before?  I am sure I remember that innocent look of espieglerie.’

’You may see it on any child’s face fresh out of the convent; it does not last a month!’ was the still displeased, rather jealous answer.  ’That little thing—­I believe they call her Nid-de-Merle—­ she has only just been brought from her nunnery to wait on the young Queen.  Ah! your gaze was perilous, it is bringing on you one of the jests of Madame Marguerite.’

With laughter and gaiety, a troop of gentlemen descended on M. de Ribaumont, and told him that Madame Marguerite desired that he should be presented to her.  The princess was standing by her pale sister-in-law, Elizabeth of Austria, who looked grave and annoyed at the mischievous mirth flashing in Marguerite’s dark eyes.

‘M. de Ribaumont,’ said the latter, her very neck heaving with suppressed fun, ’I see I cannot do you a greater favour than by giving you Mademoiselle de Nid-de-Merle for your partner.’

Berenger was covered with confusion to find that he had been guilty of such a fixed stare as to bring all this upon the poor girl.  He feared that his vague sense of recognition had made his gaze more open than he knew, and he was really and deeply ashamed of this as his worst act of provincial ill-breeding.

Poor little convent maid, with crimson cheeks, flashing eyes, panting bosom, and a neck evidently aching with proud dignity and passion, she received his low bow with a sweeping curtsey, as lofty as her little person would permit.

His cheeks burnt like fire, and he would have found words to apologize, but she cut him short by saying, hastily and low, ’Not a word, Monsieur!  Let us go through it at once.  No one shall make game of us.’

He hardly durst look at her again; but as he went through his own elaborate paces he knew that the little creature opposite was swimming, bending, turning, bounding with the fluttering fierceness of an angry little bird, and that the superb eyes were casting flashes on him that seemed to carry him back to days of early boyhood.