When it grew colder this gallant, who was of a
poetical turn of mind, read her verses from Voiture, Malherbe, or
Ronsard . . ."
"Not to mention Saumaise," said the Chevalier.
"He was usually seated at her feet in her boudoir. Sometimes they
discussed the merits of Ronsard, or a novel by the Marquis d'Urfe. On
my word of honor, Paul, to kiss her hand was the limit of my courage.
She fascinated; her eyes were pitfalls; men looked into them but to
tumble in. Gay one moment, sad the next; a burst of sunshine, a cloud!"
"What! you are talking about yourself?" asked the Chevalier. "Poet
that you are, how well you tell a story! And you feared to offend me?
I should have laughed. Is she pretty?"
"She is like her mother when her mother was twenty: the handsomest
woman in Paris, which is to say, in all France."
"And you love her?"
"So much as that your poet's neck is very near the ax," lowly.
"Eh? What's that?"
The poet glanced hastily about. There was no one within hearing. "I
asked Mazarin for this mission simply because I feared to remain in
Paris and dare not now return. Your poet put his name upon a piece of
paper which might have proved an epic but which has turned out to be
pretty poor stuff.
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