that dainty wimple of cambric and lace: “La Petite d’Étiolles” was gambling for a great stake. What if she were to be his ally in his great game? Before André there unrolled a wonderful vision of the future. He was necessary to these women. Bien! They should be necessary to him, and bitter as was the contempt in Denise’s pure eyes it only steeled his determination remorselessly to tread the path he had planned towards his goal--Denise.

The King had lost his interest and left the ball. He had entered it a free man; he left it in thraldom. And all Paris knew now that for good or evil the reversed crown of the Duchesse de Châteauroux lay in the lap of another. How long would she be permitted to wear it?As André hastened to leave, a touch was laid on his arm. “Do you believe in the crystal now?” asked a gently derisive voice. Ah! the sorceress! he had forgotten her. “You are a true witch,” he said, “you will certainly be burnt. But I thank you.”

“I understand,” she replied and she took the arm he offered. They walked in silence in search of her carriage.

“Why do you hate politics?” André demanded suddenly.

“Because,” she answered slowly, “it is the women to whom politics are a passion who ruin kingdoms.” The vehemence of the reply was as surprising as its nature. “Women,” she added, “governed the great Louis Quatorze, they corrupted the Regent, they will bring our sovereign and his kingdom to be the scorn of the world. Better a hundred witches, a hundred wantons, than one woman whose passion it is to govern a kingdom through its King. That is the woman who should be burnt.”

It was a new idea to André: it would have been a new idea to the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, to the galleries of Versailles.

“Yes,” she continued, “when a woman is not content to be a wife and a mother she deserves to be treated only as the idol of an hour, the pastime of a fleeting passion.”

“O Madame!”

“O Monsieur!” she retorted. “Believe me, it is pleasanter for the women in the end and better for the men that such women should be denied everything except that for which they live—pleasure.”

They had reached the carriage.

“Do you remember the pay for which you asked?” he questioned, taking her hand.

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