Madame Serpent Read Online Free PDF

son of the King himself.
    Forget those unhappy years in Spain. They are gone and cannot return. I hope you will not be bored at my château. I shall do my best to give you the
    hospitality worthy of a king’s son. Now, have I your permission, my dear friend, to make my request to the King? Please say yes.’
    ‘I shall be desolate if I may not come, for I long to see your château and your horses and your land.’
    She held out her hand and he took it, blushing hotly.
    She put her head close to his. ‘Never forget,’ she said, ‘that you are the son of the King of France.’
    She was right. He was the King’s son. He had never felt his importance so keenly before.
    He stared after her as she left the garden. She gave him a smile over her shoulder as she went.
    So beautiful, he thought, like a goddess, and yet so kind withal!
    ――――――――
    The summer months were the happiest Henry had ever known.
    Miraculously, his lady had gained the King’s consent to the wonderful visit. He was not the same boy when he supped and talked and rode with Madame la Grande Sénéschale of Normandy.
    ‘I will call you Henry,’ she said, ‘and you shall call me Diane, for we are friends, are we not― friends for as long as we both shall live?’
    He stammered something about hoping he would always be worthy of her
    friendship. They rode together, though not as much as he would ride in the ordinary course of events. Diane was not so fond of the chase as he was, and she had no intention of risking an accident to her beautiful body. She was making an excellent job of the task which the King had set her. In her company the boy seemed to shed all his awkwardness; it was a pity that it returned as soon as others were with him. She was getting fond of him. He was not without charm; and the devotion he was beginning to feel for her was flattering. It was so disinterested; she was accustomed to admiration, but that of the boy was
    different from anything she had before experienced. She was filled with pity for him. He had been so badly treated that it was small wonder that he responded as he did to a little kindness.
    In a very short time after their first meeting, it seemed Henry that there was no happiness to be found away from Diane. To him she was perfect, a goddess in truth; and he asked nothing from her but to be allowed to serve her. He looked about for what he could do, but there seemed nothing. He longed to wear her colours and enter the jousts; but so many men wore a lady’s colours, and that just to win her favours. Henry wanted none to mistake his devotion. He did not wish for favours as ordinary people understood them. It was favour enough for him to be able to sit near her, to watch her beautiful face, and to listen to the wisdom that came from her perfectly moulded lips, to bask in the kindness she alone offered him
    She had given him a horse when she bought those which he had chosen. She
    had asked which in his opinion was the finest of the lot, and when he had told her― little guessing what in her mind― she said that one should be his. He had protested with tears in his eyes. He wanted no gifts; he wanted only to be allowed to serve her. But she had laughed and said: ‘What are gifts among friends?’
    ‘It shall be my dearest possession,’ he had told her earnestly.
    Everything she did was exalted; nothing was ordinary. Even when she
    discussed his clothes and told him what to wear, how to bow, how to greet men and women, she did it with such grace and charm that it did not seem like a lesson. One thing she could not teach him, and that was to smile for others; he kept his smiles for her alone.
    When he heard that he was to be married to an Italian girl, he was much
    alarmed; he went to Diane at once and told her of it.
    Then was she her most sweetly sympathetic. She held his hands just as
    though he were in truth her own son; and she told him how she, a little girl of fifteen. about the age that he was now,