"Not at all. I expect he knows I am here."
Next moment Ren é entered the room, looking round with an observation which missed nothing. He saw Madame de Sauve seated in a white dressing-gown at her toilet. He saw the King of Navarre stretched on a couch at the other end of the room, to which the light of the lamp scarcely extended.
"Madame," he said with a kind of respectful familiarity, "I have come to apologise."
"My good Ren é ! Why?"
"Because I have been delayed in sending you the new beautifier I promised for those lovely lips."
"But you sent an hour ago."
Ren é looked startled for an instant, and then controlled himself to say smoothly: "My messenger has been more speedy than I supposed. . . Have you tried it yet, madame?"
"I was just going to when you knocked."
"Ren é ," Henr
