lowliest reverences. The King, the master of France, had entered and was facing the crowd. And a truly royal figure he made in his splendid dress, for Louis XV. knew how to present himself as a worthy grandson of the Sun God who had created Versailles and made monarchy in Europe sublime: the pose of his handsome head, the dignity of his carriage, the matchless air of command that conveyed an air of majesty such as could only belong to one whose wish since boyhood was law, whose words were orders, whose will was the inspiration of a nation. And when you marked that faint mysterious smile, those blue eyes delicately dull, was he not just like his grandfather, indefinable and impenetrable? What was the real man concealed behind that regal presence? What were the real thoughts masked by that gaze, slightly bored yet caressing and sweet?

“You do not like the King?” André asked quickly, for he had caught behind the pale blue mask a swift glance which sent a shiver down his spine.

“I love him,” she answered, “as all we women do. But I was thinking of the day when I am to be burnt for a witch.”

It was not the truth and André knew it. A woman’s jealousy, he thought--but that, too, he knew it was not.

“My friend,” she said, “go you and salute Madame d’Étiolles. Perhaps you will see something later on to amuse you,” and as if to assist him she glided from him and was lost in the crowd.

She had divined his mind again. To speak with the fair huntress was the resolve that had mastered him. And to his satisfaction Madame no sooner recognised him than she beckoned with her fan, smiling a shy and intoxicating welcome. André kissed her hand, looking into her eyes, imperial eyes in which slumbered imperial ambitions, such wonderful eyes, now blue, now grey, now softly dark as the violet, now glittering with the lightest mockery. “Un morceau de roi,” he muttered. “Yes, by God! a morceau de roi!”

“Conduct me to yonder pillar,” she said presently, “we can talk better there.”

But that was not her reason, for to reach the pillar they must pass near the King. Clearly Madame d’Étiolles was bent on playing to-night the game of the woods at closer quarters. André as he escorted her now felt that all eyes, including Denise’s, were on him, but he enjoyed it, walking slowly on the giddiest tiptoes of bravado. In front of Louis, he paused to make his reverence. Madame paused too, and as she unslung her quiver to curtsey with more graceful ease André could 

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