"Montalais! Montalais! there are duties to be performed."
"You talk of them very much at your ease, dear child!--you, who are left quite free amidst this tedious court. You are the only person that reaps the advantages of them without incurring the trouble,--you, who are really more one of Madame's maids of honor than I am, because Madame makes her affection for your father-in-law glance off upon you; so that you enter this dull house as the birds fly into yonder court, inhaling the air, pecking the flowers, picking up the grain, without having the least service to perform, or the least annoyance to undergo. And you talk to me of duties to be performed! In sooth, my pretty idler, what are your own proper duties, unless to write to the handsome Raoul? And even that you don't do; so that it looks to me as if you likewise were rather negligent of your duties!"
Louise assumed a serious air, leant her chin upon her hand, and, in a tone full of candid remonstrance, "And do you reproach me with my good fortune?" said she. "Can you have the heart to do it? You have a future; you will belong to the court; the king, if he should marry, will require Monsieur to be near his person; you will see splendid fetes, you will see the king, who they say is so handsome, so agreeable!"
"Ay, and still more, I shall see Raoul, who attends upon M. le Prince," added Montalais, maliciously.
"Poor Raoul!" sighed Louise.
"Now is the time to write to him, my pretty dear! Come, begin again, with that famous 'Monsieur Raoul' which figures at the top of the poor torn sheet."
She then held the pen toward her, and with a charming smile encouraged her hand, which quickly traced the words she named.
"What next?" asked the younger of the two girls.
"Why, now write what you think, Louise," replied Montalais.
"Are you quite sure I think of anything?"
"You think of somebody, and that amounts to the same thing, or rather even more."
"Do you think so, Montalais?"
"Louise, Louise, your blue eyes are as deep as the sea I saw at Boulogne last year! No, no, I mistake--the sea is perfidious: your eyes are as deep as the azure yonder--look!--over our heads!"
"Well, since you can read so well in my eyes, tell me what I am thinking about, Montalais."
"In the first place, you don't think, Monsieur Raoul; you think, My dear Raoul."