“What cause, Madame?” said Manicamp; “may I be permitted, without indiscretion, to ask your highness?”

“You ask such a question! You, M. de Guiche’s intimate friend, his confidant, indeed!”

“Oh, Madame! his intimate friend — yes; confidant — no. De Guiche is a man who can keep his own secrets, who has some of his own certainly, but who never breathes a syllable about them. De Guiche is discretion itself, Madame.”

“Very well, then; those secrets which M. de Guiche keeps so scrupulously, I shall have the pleasure of informing you of,” said the princess, almost spitefully; “for the king may possibly question you a second time, and if, on the second occasion, you were to