seemed to be talking more to himself than tome. "You are a much
better advocate than the Vicomte's wife, for instance. She
answers questions and has a temper - Ciel! what a temper!"

"You have seen the Vicomtesse?" I exclaimed, and I grew cold with
apprehension, knowing as I did the licence of that woman's tongue.

"Seen her?" he echoed whimsically. "I have seen her, heard her,
well-nigh felt her. The air of this room is still disturbed as a
consequence of her presence. She was here an hour ago."

"And it seemed," lisped La Fosse, turning from his hunting-book,
"as if the three daughters of Acheron had quitted the domain of
Pluto to take embodiment in a single woman."

"I would not have seen her," the King resumed as though La Fosse
had not spoken, "but she would not be denied. I heard her voice
blaspheming in the antechamber when I refused to receive her; there
was a commotion at my door; it was dashed open, and the Swiss who
held it was hurled into my room here as though he had been a
mannikin. Dieu! Since I have reigned in France I have not been
the centre of so much commotion. She is a strong woman, Marcel
the saints defend you hereafter, when she shall come to be your
mother-in-law. In all France, I'll swear, her tongue is the only
stouter thing than her arm. But she's a fool."

"What did she say, Sire?" I asked in my anxiety.

"Say? She swore - Ciel! how she did swear! Not a saint in the
calendar would she let rest in peace; she dragged them all by turns