"Quickly, monsieur!" she said, and glided rapidly on. She led me boldly
to her own apartments and through two or three chambers, passing, on the
way, guards, pages, and ladies in waiting, before whom I had the wit to
assume the mien of one who was about to do some service for her, and had
come to receive instructions. So my entrance seemed to pass as nothing
remarkable. At last we entered a cabinet, where I was alone with her. She
opened the door of a small closet.
"Monsieur," she said, "conceal yourself in this closet until I return. I
am going to be present at the _petite levee_ of the King. Do not stir,
for they will soon be searching the palace, with orders for your arrest.
Had you not come after me, at once, two of the Scotch Guards would have
found you where you waited. I slipped out while they were listening to
the orders that my mother added to the King's."
I fell on my knee, within the closet.
"Madame," I said, trembling with gratitude, "you are more than a queen.
You are an angel of goodness."
"No; I am merely a woman who does not forget an obligation. I have heard,
from one of my maids, who heard it from a friend of yours, how you
knocked a too inquisitive person into the moat beneath my window. I had
to burn the rope that was used that night, but I have since procured
another, which may have to be put to a similar purpose!"
And, with a smile, she shut the closet door upon me.
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