His answer came in a swift, throbbing question, his lips so near her face that she could feel his breath hot upon her cheek.
"Do you wish it, madame? Do you wish it? I implore you, of your pity, say but that you wish it, and I will come, though I tear down half a world to reach you."
She recoiled in Wright and displeasure before a wooing so impetuous and violently outspoken; though the displeasure was perhaps but a passing emotion, the result of early training. Yet she contrived to answer him with the proper icy dignity due to her position as a princess of Spain, now Queen of France.
"Monsieur, you forget yourself. The Queen of France does not listen to such words. You are mad, I think."
"Yes, I am mad," he flung back. "Mad with love—so mad that I have forgot that you are a queen and I an ambassador. Under the ambassador there is a man, under the queen a woman—our real selves, not the titles with which Fate seeks to dissemble our true natures. And with the whole strength of my true nature do I love you, so potently, so overwhelmingly that I will not believe you sensible of no response."
Thus torrentially he delivered himself, and swept her a little off her feet. She was a woman, as he said; a queen, it is true; but also a neglected, coldly-used wife; and no one had ever addressed her in anything approaching this manner, no one had ever so much as suggested that her existence could matter greatly, that in her woman's nature there was the magic power of awakening passion and devotion. He was so splendidly magnificent, so masterful and unrivalled, and he came thus to lay his being, as it were, in homage at her feet. It touched her a little, who knew so little of the real man. It cost her an effort to repulse him, and the effort was not very convincing.
"Hush, monsieur, for pity's sake! You must not talk so to me. It ... it hurts."
O fatal word! She meant that it was her dignity as Queen he wounded, for she clung to that as to the anchor of salvation. But he in his egregious vanity must of cours e misunderstand.
"Hurts!" he cried, and the rapture in his accents should have warned her. "Because you resist it, because you fight against the commands of your true self. Anne!" He seized her, and crushed her to him. "Anne!"
Wild terror gripped her at that almost brutal contact, and anger, too, her dignity surging up in violent outraged rebellion. A scream, loud and piercing, broke from her and rang through the still garden. It brought him to his senses. It was as if he had been lifted up into the air, and then suddenly allowed to fall.
He sprang away from her, an incoherent exclamation on his lips, and when an instant later Monsieur de Putange came running up in alarm, his hand upon his sword, those two stood with the width of the avenue between them, Buckingham erect and defiant, the Queen breathing hard and trembling, a hand upon her heaving breast as if to repress its tumult.
"Madame! Madame!" had been Putange's cry, as he sprang forward in alarm and self-reproach.
He stood now almost between them, looking from one to the other in bewilderment. Neither spoke.
"You cried out, Madame," M. de Putange reminded her, and Buckingham may well have wondered whether presently he would be receiving M. de Putange's sword in his vitals. He must have known that his life now hung upon her answer.
"I called you, that was all," said the Queen, in a voice that she strove to render calm. "I confess that I was startled to find myself alone with M. L'Ambassadeur. Do not let it occur again, M. de Putange!"
The equerry bowed in silence. His itching fingers fell away from his sword-hilt, and he breathed more freely. He had no illusions as to what must have happened. But he was relieved there were to be no complications. The others now coming up with them, the party thereafter kept together until presently Buckingham and Lord Holland took their leave.
On the morrow the last stage of the escorting journey was accomplished. A little way beyond Amiens the Court took its leave of Henrietta Maria, entrusting her now to Buckingham and his followers, who were to convey her safely to Charles.
It was a very contrite and downcast Buckingham who came now to Anne of Austria as she sat in her coach with the Princesse de Conti for only companion.
"Madame," he said, "I am come to take my leave."
"Fare you well, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur," she said, and her voice was warm and gentle, as if to show him that she bore no malice.
"I am come to ask your pardon, madame," he said, in a low voice.
"Oh, monsieur—no more, I beg you." She looked down; her hands were trembling, her cheeks going red and white by turns.
He put his head behind the curtains of the coach, so that none might see him from outside, and looking at him now, she beheld tears in his eyes.
"Do not misunderstand me, madame. I ask your pardon only for having discomposed you, startled you. As for what I said, it were idle to ask pardon, since I could no more help saying it than I can help drawing breath. I obeyed an instinct stronger than the will to live. I gave expression to something that dominates my whole being, and will ever dominate it as long as I have life. Adieu, madame! At need you know where a servant who will gladly die for you is to be found." He kissed the hem of her robe, dashed the back of his hand across his eyes, and was gone before she could say a word in answer.
She sat pale, and very thoughtful, and the Princesse de Conti, watching her furtively, observed that her eyes were moist.
"I will answer for the Queen's virtue," she stated afterwards, "but I cannot speak so positively for the hardness of her heart, since without doubt the Duke's tears affected her spirits."
But it was not yet the end. As Buckingham was nearing Calais, he was met by a courier from Whitehall, with instructions for him regarding the negotiations he had been empowered to carry out with France in the matter of an alliance against Spain—negotiations which had not thriven with Louis and Richelieu, possibly because the ambassador was ill-chosen. The instructions came too late to be of use, but in time to serve as a pretext for Buckingham's return to Amiens. There he sought an audience of the Queen-Mother, and delivered himself to her of a futile message for the King. This chimerical business—as Madame de Motteville shrewdly calls it—being accomplished, he came to the real matter which had prompted him to use that pretext for his return, and sought audience of Anne of Austria.
It was early morning, and the Queen was not yet risen. But the levées at the Court of France were precisely what the word implies, and they were held by royalty whilst still abed. It was not, therefore, amazing that he should have been admitted to her presence. She was alone save for her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Lannoi, who was, we are told, aged, prudent and virtuous. Conceive, therefore, the outraged feelings of this lady upon seeing the English duke precipitate himself wildly into the room, and on his knees at the royal bedside seize the coverlet and bear it to his lips.
Whilst the young Queen looked confused and agitated, Madame de Lannoi became a pillar of icy dignity.
"M. le Duc," says she, "it is not customary in France to kneel when speaking to the Queen."
"I care nothing for the customs of France, madame," he answered rudely. "I am not a Frenchman."
"That is too obvious, monsieur," snapped the elderly, prudent and virtuous countess. "Nevertheless, whilst in France perhaps monsieur will perceive the convenience of conforming to French customs. Let me call for a chair for Monsieur le Duc."
"I do not want a chair, madame."
The countess cast her eyes to Heaven, as if to say, "I suppose one cannot expect anything else in a foreigner," and let him kneel as he insisted, placing herself, however, protectingly at the Queen's pillow.
Nevertheless, entirely unabashed, heeding Madame de Lannoi's presence no more than if she had been part of the room's furniture, the Duke delivered himself freely of what was in his mind. He had been obliged to return to Amiens on a matter of State. It was unthinkable that he should be so near to her Majesty and not hasten to cast himself at her feet; and whilst gladdening the eyes of his body with the sight of her matchless perfection, the image of which was ever before the eyes of his soul, allow himself the only felicity life now held for him—that of protesting himself her utter slave. This, and much more of the kind, did he pour out, what time the Queen, embarrassed and annoyed beyond utterance, could only stare at him in silence.