Part 156 (1/2)
”He asked you, sire?”
”Yes, Henriot has singular ideas. Perhaps he is wrong, perhaps right; at any rate, one of his ideas was that he would be safer in disgrace than in favor, away from me at Vincennes instead of near me in the Louvre.”
”Ah! I see,” said Marguerite, ”and is he safe there?”
”As safe as a man can be whose head Beaulieu answers for with his own.”
”Oh! thank you, brother! so much for Henry. But”--
”But what?”
”There is another, sire, in whom perhaps I am wrong to be interested, but”--
”Who is it?”
”Sire, spare me. I would scarcely dare name him to my brother, much less to my King.”
”Monsieur de la Mole, is it not?” said Charles.
”Alas!” said Marguerite, ”you tried to kill him once, sire, and he escaped from your royal vengeance only by a miracle.”
”He was guilty of only one crime then, Marguerite; now he has committed two.”
”Sire, he is not guilty of the second.”
”But,” said Charles, ”did you not hear what our good mother said, my poor Margot?”
”Oh, I have already told you, Charles,” said Marguerite, lowering her voice, ”that what she said was false.”
”You do not know perhaps that a waxen figure has been found in Monsieur de la Mole's rooms?”
”Yes, yes, brother, I know it.”
”That this figure is pierced to the heart by a needle, and that it bears a tag with an 'M' on it?”
”I know that, too.”
”And that over the shoulders of the figure is a royal mantle, and that on its head is a royal crown?”
”I know all that.”
”Well! what have you to say to it?”
”This: that the figure with a royal cloak and a crown on its head is that of a woman, and not that of a man.”
”Bah!” said Charles, ”and the needle in its heart?”
”Was a charm to make himself beloved by this woman, and not a charm to kill a man.”
”But the letter 'M'?”