"Go up there! Go to show myself to your guests!" exclaimed she,
with choking accents, as she stepped back a pace from him. "Oh,
Francois Bigot, spare me that shame and humiliation! I am, I know,
contemptible beyond human respect, but still--God help me!--I am not
so vile as to be made a spectacle of infamy to those drunken men
whom I hear clamoring for me, even now."
"Pshaw! You think too much of the proprieties, Caroline!" Bigot
felt sensibly perplexed at the attitude she assumed. "Why! The
fairest dames of Paris, dressed as Hebes and Ganymedes, thought it a
fine jest to wait on the Regent Duke of Orleans and the Cardinal du
Bois in the gay days of the King's bachelorhood, and they do the
same now when the King gets up one of his great feasts at Choisy; so
come, sweetheart--come!" He drew her towards the door.
"Spare me, Francois!" Caroline knelt at his feet, clasping his
hand, and bathing it in tears--"Spare me!" cried she. "Oh, would to
God I had died ere you came to command me to do what I cannot and
will not do, Francois!" added she, clasping hard the hand of the
Intendant, which she fancied relaxed somewhat of its iron hardness.
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