Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/150

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140
AN ADVENTURE

give trouble: and the physical suffering entailed on all alike, boxed up in this stifling hole on a hot August afternoon, filled her with maddening oppression. Whilst the cold and insolent words of the hostile Assembly, the unspeakable insults incessantly hurled at her by the cruel voices outside, the noise, the heat, the smells, the want of room, added to the effects of sleepless nights and absence of nourishment, must have filled her with an uncontrollable longing to get away. As the afternoon wore on with no hope of relief, black, helpless despair closed in on the mind of the tired Queen. She must have felt that, if she was not to go mad, it was necessary to extricate herself from her present surroundings by at least a semi-unconsciousness of them. Her brain was on fire. Could she not force her imagination to take some rest? Even in happy times some natural impatience in the Queen's nature made it imperative to her to run away and be alone sometimes. It was at the Petit Trianon that she had found relief from tiresome restrictions, importunities of etiquette, and obsequious crowds. There at least she could have her own way and her love of simple