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Humble was Balsamo's bow; but immediately raising his intelligent and expressive brow, he fixed his clear eye, though with respect, on the chief guest, silently waiting for her to question him.
"If you are the person Baron Taverney has mentioned, pray draw nigh that we may see what a magician is like."
Balsamo came a step nearer and bowed to Marie Antoinette.
"So you make a business of foretelling?" said the latter, sipping the milk while regarding the new comer with more curiosity than she liked to betray.
"I make no business of it, but I do foretell, please your royal highness?" was the answer.
"Educated in an enlightened faith, we place faith solely in the mysteries of our religion."
"Undoubtedly they are worthy of veneration," responded the other dialoguist with a profound congé. "But the Cardinal de Rohan here, though Prince of the Church, will tell you that they are not the only ones worthy of respect."
The cardinal started, for his title had not been announced.
Not appearing to notice this revelation, Marie Antoinette pursued:
"But you must allow that they alone cannot be controverted."
"There can be fact as well as faith," replied Balsamo, with the same respect but with the same firmness.
"You speak a trifle darkly, my lord Baron of Magic. I am at heart a good Frenchwoman, but not in mind, and do not yet understand all the fineness of the language. They say I shall soon pick it up, even to the puns. Meanwhile, I must urge you to speak more plainly if you want my comprehension."
"I ask your highness to let me dwell obscure," said the baron, with a melancholy smile. "I should feel too much regret to reveal to so great a princess a future not equal to her hopes."
"Dear me, this is becoming serious," said Marie Antoinette, "and Abracadabra whets my curiosity in order to make me beg my fortune to be told."
"Heaven forbid my being forced into it," observed Balsamo coldly.
"Of course, for you would be put to much pains for little result," laughed the princess.
But her merriment died away without a courtier's echoing it; all suffered the influence of the mystic man who claimed the whole attention.
"Still it was you foretold my coming to Taverney?" said the mighty lady, to which Balsamo silently bowed. "How was the trick done, my lord baron?"
"Simply by looking into a glass of water, my liege lady," was the old noble's answer.
"If that be truly your magic mirror, it is guileless at any rate; may your words be as clear!"
The cardinal smiled, and the master of the place said:
"Your highness will not have to take lessons in punning."
"Nay, my dear host, do not flatter me, or flatter me better. It seems to me it was a mild quip; but, my lord," she resumed, turning toward Balsamo by that irresistible attraction drawing us to a danger, "if you can read the future in a glass for a gentleman, may you not read it for a lady in a decanter?"
"Perfectly; but the future is uncertain, and I should shrink from saddening your royal highness if a cloud veiled it, as I have already had the honor to say."
"Do you know me beforetimes? Where did you first see me?"
"I saw you as a child beside your august mother, that mighty queen."
"Empress, my lord."
"Queen by heart and mind, but such have weaknesses when they think they act for their daughters' happiness."
"I hope history will not record one single weakness in Maria Theresa," retorted the other.
"Because it does not know what is known solely to your highness, her mother and myself."
"Is there a secret among us three?" sneered the lady. "I must hear it."
"In Schoenbrunn Palace is the Saxony Cabinet, where the empress sits in private. One morning, about seven, the empress not being up, your highness entered this study, and perceived a letter of hers, open, on the writing-table."
The hearer blushed.
"Reading it, your highness took up a pen and struck out the three words beginning it."
"Speak them aloud!"
"'My dear Friend.'"
Marie Antoinette bit her lips as she turned pale.
"Am I to tell to whom the letter was addressed?" inquired the seer.
"No, no, but you may write it."
The soothsayer took out his memorandum book fastening with a gilt clasp, and with a kind of pencil from which flowed ink, wrote on a leaf. Detaching this page, he presented it to the princess, who read:
"The letter was addressed to the marchioness of Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV."
The dauphiness' astounded look rose upon this clearly speaking man, with pure and steady voice, who appeared to tower over her although he bowed lowly.
"All this is quite true," she admitted, "and though I am unaware how you could learn this secret, I am bound to allow, before all, that you speak true."
"Then I may retire upon this innocent proof of my science."
"Not so, my lord baron," said the princess, nettled; "the wiser you are, the more I long for your forecast. You have only spoken of the past, and I demand the future."
Her feverish agitation could not escape the bystanders.
"Let me at least consult the oracle, to learn whether the prediction may be revealed."
"Good or bad, I must hear it!" cried Marie Antoinette with growing irritation. "I shall not believe it if good, taking it for flattery; but bad, I shall regard it as a warning, and I promise any way not to bear you ill will. Begin your witchcraft."
Balsamo took up the decanter with a broad mouth and stood it in a golden saucer. He raised it thus high up, and, after looking at it shook his head.
"I cannot speak. Some things must not be told to princes," he said.
"Because you have nothing to say?" and she smiled scornfully.
Balsamo appeared embarrassed, so that the cardinal began to laugh in his face and the baron grumbled.
"My wizard is worn out," he said. "Nothing is to follow but the gold turning into dry leaves, as in the Arabian tale."
"I would have preferred the leaves to all this show; for there is no shame in drinking from a nobleman's pewter goblet, while a dauphiness of France ought not to have to use the thimble-rigging cup of a charlatan."
Balsamo started erect as if a
