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beautiful breasts," thought Artois.
    "And if I won't?" she repeated.
    "If you won't, your marriage will be annulled anyway, my dear, because reasons can always be found for annulling a king's marriage," replied Artois carelessly, intent upon the objects of his contemplation. "As soon as there is a Pope ..."
    "Oh, is there still no Pope?" cried Marguerite.
    Artois bit his lips. He had made a mistake. He ought to have remembered that she was ignorant, prisoner as she was, of what all the world knew, that since the death of Clement V the conclave had not succeeded in electing a new Pope, He had revealed a useful weapon to his adversary. And he realised by the quickness of Marguerite's reaction to the news that she was not as drunk as she pretended to be.
    Having committed the blunder, he, tried to turn it to his own advantage by playing that game of false frankness of which he was a master.
    "But that is exactly where your good fortune lies!" he cried. "That is precisely what I want you to understand. As soon as those rascally cardinals, who sell their promises as if they were at auction, have made enough out of their votes to consent to agree, Louis will no longer have need of you. You will merely have succeeded in making him hate you all the more, and he'll keep you shut up here for ever."
    "Yes, but so long as there is no Pope, nothing can be done without my agreement."
    "You're foolish to be so obstinate."
    He went and sat next to her, placed his huge hand as gently as he could about her neck and began, to stroke her shoulder.
    Marguerite seemed troubled by the contact of his huge muscular hand. It was so long since she had felt a man's hand upon her sk in .
    "Why, should you be so interested in my accepting?" she asked.
    He bent low enough over her to brush her hair with his lips.
    "I am very fond of you, Marguerite; I always have been very fond of you, as you know very well. And now our interests are bound u p together. You must succeed in regaining your freedom. And I must give Louis cause for satisfaction, so that I may enjoy his favour. You can see very well, that we must be allies.
    While speaking, he had put his, hand deep into the collar of the Queen of France's shirt and was, stroking her bosom. She made no resistance. On the contrary, she leant her head against her cousin's heavy wrist and seemed to abandon herself to him.
    "Is it not a pity," went on Robert, "that so beautiful a body, so soft and comely, should be deprived of the pleasures of the flesh? Accept, Marguerite, and I will take you far from this prison this very day; I shall lead you fir st to some well-endowed convent where I can visit you frequently and watch over you. What can, it really matter to you to declare that your daughter is not Louis's, since you have never loved the child? She raised wary eyes to him an d said these appalling words:
    "If I don't love her, is not that certain proof that she is my hus band's daughter? "
    For a moment she seemed to be dreaming, her eyes gazing upwards. The logs shifted on the hearth, lighting up the room with a great fountain of sparks. And Marguerite suddenly began to laugh, revealing her little white teeth; her mouth was all pink inside like a cat's.
    "Why are you laughing?" asked Robert.
    "Because of the ceiling," she replied, "I have just noticed that it is like the ceiling of the Tower of Nesle."
    Artois rose in stupefaction. He couldn't help feeling a certain admiration for so much cynicism joined to so much cunning. "My God, what a woman! " he thought.
    She watched him as he stood enormous; in front of the fire, planted on his legs solid as trunks of trees. The flames shone on his red boots, glinted on the gold of his spurs and the silver of his belt. If his capacity for desire were in proportion to the rest of him, there would be enough to atone for all the regrets of seven months' seclusion .
    He raised her up and' pulled her to him.
    "Ah, Cousin," he said, "if only you had married me, or had chosen