The Queen's Necklace Part 77

All hearts beat so that you might have heard them.

"Where?" said the queen, in a terrible voice.

Philippe was silent.

"Oh, no concealment, sir! My brother says you saw me at the ball of the Opera."

"I did, madame."

The queen sank on a sofa; then, rising furiously, she said:

"It is impossible, for I was not there! Take care, M. de Taverney!"

"Your majesty," said Andree, pale with anger, "if my brother says he saw you, he did see you."

"You also!" cried Marie Antoinette; "it only remains now for you to have seen me. Pardieu! my enemies overwhelm me."

"When I saw that the blue domino was not the king," said the Comte d'Artois, "I believed him to be that nephew of M. de Suffren whom you received so well here the other night."

The queen colored.

"Did it not look something like his tournure, M. de Taverney?" continued the count.

"I did not remark, monseigneur," said he, in a choking voice.

"But I soon found out that it was not he; for suddenly I saw him before me, and he was close by you when your mask fell off."

"So he saw me too?"

"If he were not blind, he did."

The queen rang.

"What are you about to do?"

"Send for him also, and ask. I will drain this cup to the dregs!"

"I do not think he can come," said Philippe.

"Why?"

"Because I believe he is not well."

"Oh, he must come, monsieur! I am not well either, but I would go to the end of the world barefoot to prove----"

All at once Andree, who was near the window, uttered an exclamation.

"What is it?" cried the queen.

"Oh, nothing; only here comes M. de Charny."

The queen, in her excitement, ran to the window, opened it, and cried, "M. de Charny!"

He, full of astonishment, hastened to enter.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

AN ALIBI.

M. de Charny entered, a little pale, but upright, and not apparently suffering.

"Take care, sister," said the Comte d'Artois; "what is the use of asking so many people?"

"Brother, I will ask the whole world, till I meet some one who will tell you you are deceived."

Charny and Philippe bowed courteously to each other, and Philippe said in a low voice, "You are surely mad to come out wounded; one would say you wished to die."

"One does not die from the scratch of a thorn in the Bois de Boulogne,"

replied Charny.

The queen approached, and put an end to this conversation. "M. de Charny," said she, "these gentlemen say that you were at the ball at the Opera?"

"Yes, your majesty."

"Tell us what you saw there."

"Does your majesty mean whom I saw there?"

"Precisely; and no complaisant reserve, M. de Charny."

"Must I say, madame?"

The cheeks of the queen a.s.sumed once more that deadly paleness, which had many times that morning alternated with a burning red.

"Did you see me?" she asked.

"Yes, your majesty, at the moment when your mask unhappily fell off."

Marie Antoinette clasped her hands.

"Monsieur," said she, almost sobbing, "look at me well; are you sure of what you say?"

"Madame, your features are engraved in the hearts of your subjects; to see your majesty once is to see you forever."

"But, monsieur," said she, "I a.s.sure you I was not at the ball at the Opera."