The Duchesse d'Angouleme wraps her arms round her ears. Lowers her head to her lap.

Slowly, tenderly, unopposed by anyone else in the room, Charles Rapskeller kneels before her. Rests his forehead on top of her bonnet.

"Marie," he says. "I've come home. Just as I said I would. Remember? Our last night together?"

And then, with her fan, she strikes him in the face.

The second blow is on his shoulder. By the fourth blow, she has discarded her fan and is using only her gloved fist.

Such is her rank that no one makes a move to stop her. Charles, least of all. No longer averse to touch, he simply suffers the blows to rain down, one after the next. A blow for every year he has been absent.

At last he grabs her hand and presses it to his lips.

"The Lord is merciful," she murmurs, falling into his arms. "Gaze on His works. The Lord is merciful."

CHAPTE R 44.

A Rupture of Etiquette Some thing I will always remember: the Duchess's face as it reemerges from that initial embrace. Radiant with terror, not joy. Her fingers actually tremble as they cup Charles' face.

"It is you," she says.

And having reassured herself, the bottom drops out from inside, and she subsides into a torrent of weeping. Never before, I think, has Madame la Serieuse mourned or rejoiced so freely.

"Pray excuse me," she stammers.

The Marquis lays his hand on her bowed head.

"No need, my child. I have prayed for this day, too."

Officially sanctioned now, her tears come hot and fast, forming a

membrane between her and the world, transforming that pinched red face into some approximation of its youthful bloom. At last, dazed and drained, she wobbles to her feet. Takes the handkerchief proffered by Vidocq.

"Well," she says. "This does change things."

"It certainly does," agrees Vidocq.

"I must . . ." Her eyes scatter from tapestry to tapestry. "I must tell

my uncles, mustn't I?"

"The King, yes," the Marquis answers. "I beg you to leave me the

pleasure of informing the Comte d'Artois."

The meaning behind his icy smile is lost on her, for there is no irony

in her world now. And no other object but this young man, crouching

on the f loor where she left him.

"Come," she says, extending her hand. "You must come with me

now."

He takes her hand. Rises.

"If it's all the same to you, I'd like to stay with Hector." Had he declared he was swimming to the moon, he might have met

with the same baff lement. She doesn't even know at first whom he's

referring to.

"Do you mean . . ." Her fingers waggle in my direction. "With

him?"

"Just for tonight," Charles says. "Hector and I have been through

quite a lot, you know. And he sits with me till I go to sleep and his