Besides, if you positively wish it, the portrait shall remain in your own possession." La Valliere blushed.

"You see," said the king to her, "we shall not be three as you wished, but four instead.
And, so long as we are not alone, there can be as many present as you please." La Valliere gently pressed her royal lover's hand.
"Shall we pass into the next room, sire ?" said Saint-Aignan, opening the door to let his guests precede him.

The king walked behind La Valliere, and fixed his eyes lingeringly and passionately upon that neck as white as snow, upon which her long fair ringlets fell in heavy masses.

La Valliere was dressed in a thick silk robe of pearl gray color, with a tinge of rose, with jet ornaments, which displayed to greater effect the dazzling purity of her skin, holding in her slender and transparent hands a bouquet of heartsease, Bengal roses, and clematis, surrounded with leaves of the tenderest green, above which uprose, like a tiny goblet spilling magic influence a Haarlem tulip of gray and violet tints of a pure and beautiful species, which had cost the gardener five years' toil of combinations, and the king five thousand francs.

Louis had placed this bouquet in La Valliere's hand as he saluted her.