Part 24 (1/2)
As he spoke, the eyes of the king rested unequivocally upon an object which he perceived just behind the chair of the d.u.c.h.ess. She understood, and hastened to repair her blunder. ”Sire,” said she ”may I ask of your majesty a favor? My new lady of the bedchamber has just arrived in Paris, where she is a perfect stranger. Will you be so gracious as to give her this proof of your royal favor? She is not only my favorite attendant, but the daughter of your majesty's minister of war, and--”
”And she is, above all things, herself--the beautiful Marchioness de Bonaletta,” interrupted the king, with somewhat of his youthful courtliness and grace. ”You propose her as your subst.i.tute, do you not?”
”Yes, sire--if your majesty is so good.”
”So good! I shall esteem myself most happy in the acquisition of so charming a partner. Does the Marchioness de Bonaletta consent?”
With these words, Louis offered his hand; and Laura, without embarra.s.sment or presumption, accepted the honor conferred upon her, and was led out to the dance. A murmur of admiration followed her appearance, but she seemed quite unconscious of the impression she had made. Her lovely countenance was neither lit up by pride, nor suffused by bashfulness. Her cheeks were slightly flushed by natural modesty, and her sweet, unaffected bearing enhanced her incomparable beauty of person.
Even De Montespan herself could not withhold her tribute of admiration. At first she had darted glances of hatred toward an imaginary rival; but, a calm survey of Laura's pure and angelic expression of face rea.s.sured her. This girl had no mind to entrap the king, and if Louis had not courage enough to dance with HER (De Montespan), in presence of that canting hypocrite De Maintenon, perhaps it was quite as well that he had provided himself with a partner sans coquetterie, and therefore sans consequence.
Madame de Maintenon, too, had remarked Laura, as, gracefully emerging from her concealment behind the seat of the d.u.c.h.ess, she had unostentatiously accepted the king's invitation to dance.
”What a union of tact with tenderness of heart is apparent in all that his majesty does,” said she to the Duke de Maine, who was standing beside her. ”This young girl is the personification of innocence and purity, and his majesty's selection of her as his partner proves that he not only desires to pay homage to youth and beauty, but also to virtue and modesty.”
”How beautiful she is!” murmured a young cavalier, who, with Barbesieur Louvois, was watching the dancers.
”Why do you sigh?” replied Barbesieur. ”You ought rather to be proud of your future bride.”
”My future bride!” echoed he, dolefully. ”I would she were, my dear friend. But although your father has so graciously given his consent, I am as far from obtaining her as ever.”
”It you wait for that,” whispered Barbesieur in return, ”you may wait until the day of judgment. My sister is one of those incomprehensible beings that loves opposition for opposition's sake.
If she is disdainful, it is precisely because she is quite as much enamored of you as you are of her. She is a sort of chaste Artemis who is ashamed of her preference for a man, and would die rather than confess it.”
”She enchants me at one moment, and drives me to despair the next,”
sighed the marquis.
”No need for despair,” was the reply. ”My dear marquis,” continued Barbesieur, coming close to the ear of the Italian, ”what will you give me if I promise that you shall become her husband?”
The eyes of the marquis glowed with desire, and his swarthy face was tinged with red. ”What would I give?” cried he, as he caught a glimpse of Laura on the dance. ”The half of my fortune, the half of my life, if, with one half of either, I might call her mine!”
”Nay,” said Barbesieur, with a sinister laugh, ”I am neither robber nor devil. I wish neither your fortune nor your soul in exchange for my wares. Laura is so headstrong, that she will have to be forced into happiness, and made to take what even now she is longing to s.n.a.t.c.h. So if I make you both happy, you will not then object to giving me a few of the crumbs that fall from your table?”
”I will give you any thing you desire, and my eternal grat.i.tude to boot, if you will help me to become possessor of that angel.”
”I am pa.s.sionately fond of hunting, and the Marchioness de Bonaletta has the most tempting bit of woods that ever made a hunter's heart ache to call it his. Now if you marry Laura, you become her guardian, and have absolute power over her property.”
”I care nothing for her property,” cried the marquis, pa.s.sionately.
”Her beauty, her sweetness, and her n.o.ble birth, are wealth enough for me. In the golden book of Venice the name of the richest n.o.ble there inscribed is the Strozzi.”
”Everybody knows that, dear marquis, and therefore you will not refuse the reward I claim from my sister's own possessions. 'Tis but meet that she make a present to her brother on her wedding-day. So, then, we understand each other: immediately after the ceremony of your marriage, you make out a deed by which you relinquish to me the usufruct of the Bonaletta estates in Savoy for life. Who gets them after me, I care not.”
”I consent; and add thereunto a yearly pension of one thousand ducats. Does that content you?”
”Your liberality is really touching. A thousand ducats to boot! They will fall like a refres.h.i.+ng shower into a purse that is always as empty as the sieves of the Danaides. It is a bargain. YOU wed Laura Bonaletta, and _I_ get her estates, and one thousand ducats a year.”
”Here is my hand.”
”And mine. In one month you shall both be on your way to Venice; you a happy bridegroom, and she--your bride.”