"The bearer of this letter is sent to meet you by your true and faithful friends. You may trust yourself and those you care for unconditionally to him."
"The bearer of this letter is sent to meet you by your true and faithful friends. You may trust yourself and those you care for unconditionally to him."
To this note she affixed a seal stamped with the Eglinton arms: and across the words themselves she wrote the name "Eglinton!"
There was no reason to fear for a moment that the Stuartprince would have any misgivings when he received this message of comfort and of hope.
Then with all the papers safely tied together and hidden in the folds of her corselet, she once more found her way down the great staircase and terraces and into the beech wood where M. de Stainville awaited her.
Gaston de Stainville had been sitting idly on the garden seat, vaguely wondering why Lydie was so long absent, ignorant of course of the acute crisis through which she had just passed. For the last quarter of an hour of this weary waiting, anxiety began to assail him.
Women were so fickle and so capricious! which remark inwardly muttered came with singular inappropriateness from Gaston de Stainville. His keen judgment, however, fought his apprehensions. He knew quite well that Lydie was unlike other women, at once stronger and weaker than those of her own sex, more firm in her purpose, less bendable in her obstinacy. And he knew also that nothing could occur within the gorgeous walls of that palace to cause her to change her mind.
But as the moments sped on, his anxiety grew apace. He no longer could sit still, and began walking feverishly up and down the little glade, like an animal caged within limits too narrow for its activity. He dared not wander out of the wood, lest she should return and, not finding him there, think at once of doubting.
Thus when she once more appeared before him, he was not so calm as he would have wished, nor yet so keen in noting the subtle, indefinable change which had come over her entire personality. Desirous of masking his agitation,he knelt when she approached, and thus took the packet from her hand.
The action struck her as theatrical, her mind being filled with another picture, that of a man motionless and erect, with pale, expressionless face, which yet had meant so much more of reality to her.
And because of this theatricality in Gaston's attitude, she lost something of the fullness of joy of this supreme moment. She ought to have been happier, more radiant with hope for the future and with gratitude to him. She tried to say something enthusiastic, something more in keeping with the romance of this sudden and swift departure, the prospective ride to Le Havre, the spirit of self-sacrifice and courage which caused him to undertake this task, so different to his usual avocation of ease and luxury.
"I pray you, Gaston," she said, "guard the packet safely, and use your best endeavours to reach Le Havre ere the night hath yielded to a new dawn."
She could not say more just now, feeling that if she added words of encouragement or of praise, they would not ring true, and would seem as artificial as his posture at her feet.
"I will guard the packet with my life," he said earnestly, "and if perchance you wake to-night from dreams of the unfortunate prince, whom your devotion will save from death, send one thought wandering far away across the rich fields of Normandy, for they will be behind me by that time, and I will sight the port of Le Havre long before its church spires are tipped with gold."
"God speed you then!" she rejoined. "I'll not detain you!"
She chided herself for her coldness, noting that Gastonon the other hand seemed aglow now with excitement, as he unbuttoned his coat and slipped the papers into an inner pocket. Then he sprang to his feet and seemed ready to go.
Just at the moment of actual parting, when he asked for her hand to kiss, and she, giving it to him felt his lips trembling on her fingers, some measure of his excitement communicated itself to her, and she repeated more warmly:
"God speed you, Gaston, and farewell!"
"God bless you, Lydie, for this trust which you have deigned to place in me! Two days hence at even I shall have returned. Where shall I see you then?"
"In my study. Ask for an audience. I will see that it is granted."
The next moment he had gone; she saw the rich purple of his coat gradually vanish behind the tall bracken. Even then she had no misgivings. She thought that she had done right, and that she had taken the only course by which she could ensure the safety of the Stuart prince, to whom France, whom she guided through the tortuous paths of diplomacy, and for whose honour she felt herself to be primarily responsible, had pledged her word and her faith.
In one of the smaller rooms of the palace of Trianon, His Majesty King Louis XV received M. le Comte de Stainville in private audience. Madame la Marquise de Pompadour was present. She sat in an armchair, close beside the one occupied by His Majesty, her dainty feet resting on a footstool, her hand given up to her royal patron, so that he might occasionally imprint a kiss upon it.
Gaston de Stainville sat on a tabouret at a respectful distance. He had in his hand a letter with a seal attached to it and a map, which had a number of notes scribbled in the margin. His Majesty seemed in a superlatively good humour, and sat back in his chair, his fat body shaking now and again with bursts of merriment.
"Eh! eh! this gallant Count!" he said jovially, "par ma foi! to think that the minx deceived us and our Court all these years, with her prim ways and prudish manner. Even Her Majesty the Queen looks upon Madame Lydie as a pattern of all the virtues."
He leaned forward and beckoned to Gaston to draw his chair nearer.
"Voyons, M. le Comte," continued Louis with a humorous leer, "there is no need for quite so much discretion. We are all friends together . . . eh? Tell us how you did it."
Gaston de Stainville did draw his chair nearer to His Majesty, such a proffered honour was not to be ignored. His face wore an air of provocative discretion and a fatuous smile curled his sensual lips.
"Nay," he said unctuously, "your Majesty who isgalant hommepar excellence will deign to grant me leave to keep inviolate the secret of how I succeeded in breaking through the barrier of prudery, set up by the most unapproachable woman in France. Enough that I did succeed: and that I have been made thrice happy by being allowed to place the result, with mine own hands, at the feet of the most adored of her sex."
And with an elegant and graceful flourish of the arm, he rose from his tabouret and immediately dropped on one knee at Madame's feet, offering her the letter and the map which he held. She took them from him, regarding him with a smile, which fortunately the amorous but highly jealous monarch failed to see; he had just taken the papers from Pompadour and was gloating over their contents.
"You had best see M. le Duc d'Aumont at once," said His Majesty with a quick return to gravity, as soon as Gaston de Stainville had once more resumed his seat. "Go back to the palace now, Monsieur le Comte, Madame will allow you to take her chair, and then by using our own private entrance on the South side, you will avoid being seen from the West Wing. Needless to say, I hope, that discretion and wariness must be your watchword until the affair is brought to a successful conclusion."
Gaston de Stainville bent himself nearly double, and placed one hand there, where his heart was supposed to be,all in token that he would be obedient to the letter and the spirit of every royal command.
"We do not think," said Louis, with somewhat forced carelessness, "that our subjects need know anything about this transaction."
"Certainly not, Sire," rejoined De Stainville most emphatically, whilst Madame too nodded very decisively.
"Most people have strange ideas about politics and diplomacy," continued the King. "Just as if those complicated arts could be conducted on lines of antiquated mediæval codes: therefore the whole business must be kept between our three selves now present, M. le Comte, and of course M. le Duc d'Aumont, who has helped us throughout, and without whom we could not now proceed."
"I quite understand, Sire," assented Gaston.
"We are of course presuming that your happy influence over Madame Lydie will not cease with her giving you those papers," said Louis with another of his unpleasant leers.
"I think not your Majesty."
"She will hold her tongue, I should imagine . . . for very obvious reasons," said Madame with a malicious sneer.
"Anyhow you had best make our recommendations known to Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont. Tell him that we suggest not relying onLe Monarqueeven though she be ready to put to sea, as her commander may be, for aught we know a secret adherent of the Stuart. We should not care to trust him, since the Eglintons seem to have been already to do so. A delay of five or six days whileLe Levantinis being commissioned is better than the taking of any risk.Though we are doing nothing that we are ashamed of," added Louis the Well-beloved airily, "we have no wish that the matter be bruited abroad, lest we be misunderstood."
We must suppose that Monsieur le Comte de Stainville had been denied at his birth the saving gift of a sense of humour, for in reply to this long tirade from the King, he said quite seriously and emphatically:
"Your Majesty need not be under the slightest apprehension. Neither M. le Duc d'Aumont, I feel sure, nor I myself will in any way endanger the absolute secrecy of the transaction, lest we be misunderstood. As for Madame Lydie . . ." He paused a moment, whilst carefully examining his well-trimmed nails: a smile, wherein evil intent now fought with fatuity, played round the corners of his lips. "Madame Lydie will also hold her tongue," he concluded quietly.
"That is well!" assented the King. "M. le Duc d'Aumont will see to the rest. In five or six days,Le Levantinshould be ready. Her secret orders have been drafted and already bear our royal signature. Now with this map and directions, and the private note for the Stuart, all so kindly furnished by Madame Lydie, the expedition should be easy, and above all quite swift. The sooner the affair is concluded and the money paid over, the less likelihood there is of our subjects getting wind thereof. We must stipulate, M. le Comte, since you are the youngest partner in this undertaking and the least prominent in the public eye, that you take the secret orders yourself toLe Levantin. We should not feel safe if they were in any one else's hands."
"I thank your Majesty for this trust."
"For this special task, and for your work this afternoon, you shall be rewarded with two out of the fifteen millions promised by His Grace of Cumberland. M. le Duc d'Aumont will receive three, whilst we shall have the honour and pleasure of laying the remainder at the feet of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour."
He cast an amorous glance at Madame, who promptly rewarded him with a gracious smile.
"I think that is all which we need say for the present M. le Comte," concluded His Majesty; "within six days from now you should be on your way to Brest whereLe Levantinshould by then be waiting her orders and ready to put to sea. A month later, if wind, weather and circumstances favour us, that young adventurer will have been handed over to the English authorities and we, who had worked out the difficult diplomatic problems so carefully, will have shared between us the English millions."
With his habitual airy gesture, Louis now intimated that the audience was at an end. He was obviously more highly elated than he cared to show before Gaston, and was longing to talk over plans and projects for future pleasures and extravagances with the fair Marquise. Madame, who had the knack of conveying a great deal by a look, succeeded in intimating to Gaston that she would gladly have availed herself a little longer of his pleasant company, but that royal commands must prevail.
Gaston therefore rose and kissed each hand, as it was graciously extended to him.
"We are pleased with what you have done, Monsieur le Comte," said the King as M. de Stainville finally took his leave, "but tell me," he whispered slily, "did the unapproachable Lydie yield with the first kiss, or did she struggle much? . . . eh? . . . B-r-r . . . my dear Comte, are your lips not frozen by contact with such an icicle?"
"Nay, your Majesty! all icicles are bound to melt sooner or later!" said Gaston de Stainville with a smile which—had Lydie seen it—would have half killed her with shame.
And with that same smile of fatuity still lurking round his lips, he bowed himself out of the room.
M. le Duc d'Aumont, Prime Minister of His Majesty King Louis XV of France, was exceedingly perturbed. He had just had two separate interviews, each of half an hour's duration, and he was now busy trying to dissociate what his daughter had told him in the first interview, from that which M. de Stainville had imparted to him in the second. And he was not succeeding.
The two sets of statements seemed inextricably linked together.
Lydie, certainly had been very strange and agitated in her manner, totally unlike herself: but this mood of course, though so very unusual in her, did not astonish M. le Duc so much, once he realized its cause.
It was the cause which was so singularly upsetting.
Milor Eglinton, his son-in-law, had sent in his resignation as Comptroller-General of Finance, and this without giving any reason for so sudden and decisive a step. At any rate Lydie herself professed to be ignorant of milor's motives for this extraordinary line of action as she was of his future purpose. All she knew—or all that she cared to tell her father—was that her husband had avowedly the intention of deserting her: he meant to quit Versailles immediately, thus vacating his post without a moment's notice, and leaving his wife, whom he had allowed to conductall State affairs for him for over a year, to extricate herself, out of a tangle of work and an anomalous position, as best she might.
The only suggestion which milor had cared to put forward, with regard to her future, was that he was about to make her a free gift of his château and lands of Vincennes, the yearly revenues of which were close upon a million livres. This gift she desired not to accept.
In spite of strenuous and diplomatic efforts on his part, M. le Duc d'Aumont had been unable to obtain any further explanation of these extraordinary events from his daughter. Lydie had no intention whatever of deceiving her father and she had given him what she believed to be a perfectly faithfulexposéof the situation. All that she had kept back from him was the immediate cause of the grave misunderstanding between herself and her husband, and we must do her the justice to state that she did not think that this was relevant to the ultimate issue.
Moreover, she was more than loath to mention the Stuart prince and his affairs again before M. le Duc. She knew that he was not in sympathy with her over this matter and she dreaded to know with absolute certainty that there was projected treachery afoot, and that he perhaps would have a hand in it. What Gaston de Stainville had conjectured, had seen and overheard, what she herself had guessed, was not to her mind quite conclusive as far as her father's share in the scheme was concerned.
She was deeply attached to her father, and her heart found readily enough a sufficiency of arguments which exonerated him from actual participation in such wanton perfidy. At any rate in this instance she chose ignorancerather than heartrending certainty, and as by her quick action and Gaston's timely and unexpected help, the actual treachery would be averted, she preferred to dismiss her father's problematical participation in it entirely from her mind.
Thus she told him nothing of milor's attitude with regard to the Duke of Cumberland's letter; in fact, she never once referred to the letter or to the Young Pretender; she merely gave M. le Duc to understand that her husband seemed desirous of living his future life altogether apart from hers.
M. le Duc d'Aumont was sorely disquieted: two eventualities presented themselves before him, and both were equally distasteful. One was the scandal which would of necessity spread around his daughter's name the moment her matrimonial differences with her husband became generally known. M. le Duc d'Aumont was too well acquainted with this Court of Versailles not to realize that Lydie's position, as a neglected wife, would subject her to a series of systematic attentions, which she could but regard in the light of insults.
On the other hand M. le Duc could not even begin to think of having to forego his daughter's help in the various matters relating to his own administration. He had been accustomed for some years now to consult her in all moments of grave crises, to rely on her judgment, on her able guidance, worth ten thousand times more to him than an army of masculine advisers.
In spite of the repeated sneers hurled at this era of "petticoat government," Lydie had been of immense service to him, and if she were suddenly to be withdrawn from his official life, he would feel very like Louis XIII had done onthat memorable Journée des Dupes, when Richelieu left him for twenty-four hours to conduct the affairs of State alone. He would not have known where to begin.
But Lydie told him that her decision was irrevocable, or what was more to the point, milor had left her no alternative: his resignation was by now in His Majesty's hands, and he had not even suggested that Lydie should accompany him, when he quitted Versailles, in order to take up life as a private gentleman.
It was all very puzzling and very difficult. M. le Duc d'Aumont strongly deprecated the idea of his daughter vacating her official post, because of this sudden caprice of milor. He had need of her, and so had France, and the threads of national business could not be snapped in a moment. The post of Comptroller-General of Finance could remain in abeyance for awhile. After that one would see.
Then with regard to the proposed gifts of the château and revenues of Vincennes, M. le Duc d'Aumont would not hear of a refusal. Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton must have a private establishment worthy of her rank, and an occasional visit from milor would help to keep up an outward appearance of decorum, and to throw dust in the eyes of the scandal-mongers.
The interview with his daughter had upset M. le Duc d'Aumont very considerably. The whole thing had been so unexpected: it was difficult to imagine his usually so impassive and yielding son-in-law displaying any initiative of his own. M. le Duc was still puzzling over the situation when M. le Comte de Stainville, specially recommended by His Majesty himself, asked for a private audience.
And the next half-hour plunged M. le Duc into a perfect labyrinth of surmises, conjectures, doubts and fears. That Gaston de Stainville was possessed not only of full knowledge with regard to the Stuart prince's hiding-place, but also of a letter in Lydie's handwriting, addressed to the prince and sealed with her private seal, was sufficiently astonishing in itself, but the young man's thinly veiled innuendoes, his fatuous smiles, his obvious triumph, literally staggered M. le Duc, even though his palm itched with longing for contact with the insolent braggart's cheek. Every one of his beliefs was being forcibly uprooted; his daughter whom he had thought so unapproachable, so pure and so loyal! who had this very morning shamed him by her indignation at the very thought of this treachery, which she now so completely condoned! that she should have renounced her opinions, her enthusiasm for the sake of a man who had already betrayed her once, was more than M. le Duc could and would believe at first.
Yet the proofs were before him at this very moment. They had been placed in his hand by Gaston de Stainville: the map with the marginal notes, which Lydie had so often refused to show even to her own father, and the letter in her handwriting with the bold signature right across the contents, bidding the unfortunate young prince trust the traitor who would deliver him into the hands of his foes.
But M. le Duc would have had to be more than human not to be satisfied in a measure at the result of Gaston de Stainville's diplomacy; he stood in for a goodly share of the millions promised by England. But it was the diplomacy itself which horrified him. He had vainly tried to dissuade Lydie from chivalrous and misguided effortson behalf of the young prince, or at any rate from active interference, if His Majesty had plans other than her own; but whilst she had rejected his merest suggestions on that subject with unutterable contempt, she had not only listened to Gaston de Stainville, but actually yielded her will and her enthusiasms to his pleadings.
M. le Duc sighed when he thought it all out. Though Lydie had done exactly what he himself wanted her to do, he hated the idea that she should have done it because Gaston de Stainville had persuaded her.
Later on in the afternoon when an excellently cooked dinner had softened his mood, he tried to put together the various pieces of the mental puzzle which confronted him.
Gaston de Stainville had obtained a certain ascendancy over Lydie, and Lydie had irretrievably quarrelled with her husband. Milor was determined to quit Versailles immediately; Lydie was equally bent on not relinquishing her position yet. Gaston de Stainville was obviously triumphant and somewhat openly bragged of his success, whilst milor kept to his own private apartments, and steadily forbade his door to every one.
It was indeed a very difficult problem for an indulgent father to solve. Fortunately for his own peace of mind, M. le Duc d'Aumont was not only indulgent to his own daughter whom he adored, but also to every one of her sex. He was above all apreux chevalier, who held that women were beings of exceptional temperament, not to be judged by the same standards as the coarser fibred male creatures; their beauty, their charm, the pleasure they afforded to the rest of mankind, placed them above criticism or even comment.
And of course Lydie was very beautiful . . . and milor a fool . . . and . . . Gaston. . . . Well! who could blame Gaston?
And it was most amazingly lucky that Lydie had given up her absurd ideas about that Stuart prince, and had thus helped those English millions to find their way comfortably across the Channel, into the pockets of His Majesty the King of France, and of one or two others, including her own doting father.
And after that M. le Duc d'Aumont gave up worrying any more about the matter.
What chronicler of true events will ever attempt to explain exactly how rumour succeeds in breaking through every bond with which privacy would desire to fetter her, and having obtained a perch on the swiftest of all currents of air, travels through infinite space, and anon, observing a glaringly public spot wherein to alight, she descends with amazing rapidity and mingles with the crowd.
Thus with the news anent milor Eglinton's resignation of the General Control of Finance.
By the time the Court assembled that evening for the Queen's reception, every one had heard of it, and also that milor, having had a violent quarrel with his wife, had quitted or was about to quit Versailles without further warning.
The news was indeed exceedingly welcome. Not from any ill-will toward Lord Eglinton, of course, who was very popular with the ladies and more than tolerated by the men, nor from any sense of triumph over Madame Lydie, although she had not quite so many friends as milor, but because it happened to be Thursday, and every Thursday Her Majesty the Queen held her Court from seven o'clock till nine o'clock: which function was so deadly dull, that there was quite an epidemic of dislocated jaws—caused by incessant yawning—among the favoured few who were both privileged and obliged to attend. A piece of real gossip, well-authenticated,and referring to a couple so highly placed as Lord and Lady Eglinton, was therefore a great boon. Even Her Majesty could not fail to be interested, as Lydie had always stood very highly in the good graces of the prim and melancholy Queen, whilst milor was one of that very small and very select circle which the exalted lady honoured with her conversation on public occasions.
Now on this same Thursday evening, Queen Marie Leszcynska entered her throne-room precisely at seven o'clock. Madame Lydie was with her as she entered, and it was at once supposed that Her Majesty was already acquainted with Lord Eglinton's decision, for she conversed with the neglected wife with obvious kindliness and sympathy.
His Majesty was expected in about a quarter of an hour. As Madame de Pompadour and her immediate entourage were excluded from these solemn functions, the King showed his disapproval of the absence of his friends by arriving as late as etiquette allowed, and by looking on at the presentations, and other paraphernalia of his wife's receptions, in morose and silentennui.
This evening, however, the proceedings were distinctly enlivened by that subtle and cheerful breath of scandal, which hovered all over the room. Whilst noble dowagers presented débutante daughters to Her Majesty, and grave gentlemen explained to fledgling sons how to make a first bow to the King, groups of younger people congregated in distant corners, well away from the royal dais and discussed the great news of the day.
Lydie did not mingle with these groups. In addition to her many other dignities and functions, she was Grande Maréchale de la Cour to Queen Marie Leszcynska and onthese solemn Thursday evenings her place was beside Her Majesty, and her duty to present such ladies of high rank who had either just arrived at Court from the country or who, for some other reason, had not yet had the honour of a personal audience.
Chief among these reasons was the Queen's own exclusiveness. The proud daughter of Stanislaus of Poland with her semi-religious education, her narrow outlook on life, her unfortunate experience of matrimony, had a wholesome horror of the frisky matrons and flirtatious minxes whom Louis XIV's taste had brought into vogue at the Court of France; and above all, she had an unconquerable aversion for the various scions of that mushroom nobility dragged from out the gutter by the catholic fancies of le Roi Soleil.
Though she could not help but receive some of these people at the monster Court functions, which the elaborate and rigid etiquette of the time imposed upon her, and whereat all the tatterdemalions that had e'er filched a handle for their name had, by that same unwritten dictum, the right of entry, she always proudly refused subsequently to recognize in private a presentation to herself, unless it was made by her special leave, at one of her own intimate audiences, and through the mediation either of her own Grande Maréchale de la Cour, or of one of her privileged lady friends.
Thus Madame la Comtesse de Stainville, though formally presented at the general Court by virtue of her husband's title and position, had never had the honour of an invitation to Her Majesty's private throne-room. Queen Marie had heard vague rumours anent the early reputation of "la belle brune de Bordeaux"; this very nick-name, freely bandied about, grated on her puritanic ear. Irènede Stainville, chafing under the restrictions which placed her on a level with the Pompadours of the present and the Montespans or La Vallières of the past, had more than once striven to enlist Lydie's help and protection in obtaining one of the coveted personal introductions to Her Majesty.
Lydie, however, had always put her off with polite but ambiguous promises, until to-day, when her heart, overfilled with gratitude for Gaston de Stainville, prompted her to do something which she knew must please him, and thus prove to him that she was thinking of him at the very time when he was risking his entire future and probably his life in an attempt to serve her.
Her own troubles and sorrows in no way interfered with the discharge of her social duties. Whilst she still occupied certain official positions at Court, she was determined to fill them adequately and with perfect dignity. A brief note to Irène de Stainville acquainted the latter lady with the pleasing fact, that Madame la Grande Maréchale would have much pleasure in introducing her personally to Her Majesty the Queen that very same evening, and "la belle brune de Bordeaux" was therefore present at this most exclusive of all functions on Thursday, August 13, 1746, and duly awaited the happy moment when she could make her curtsey before the proudest princess in all Europe, in the magnificent gown which had been prepared some time ago in view of this possible and delightful eventuality.
She stood somewhat isolated from the rest of the throng, between two or three of her most faithful admirers, holding herself aloof from the frivolity of the surrounding gossip and wearing a sphinx-like air of detachment and of hidden and sorrowful knowledge.
To every comment as to the non-appearance of her lord at the soirée, she had mutely replied by a slight shrug of the shoulders.
Up in the gallery, behind a screen of exotic plants, the band of musicians was playing one of M. Lulli's most famous compositions, the beautiful motet in E flat which, alone amongst the works of that master of melody, was sufficiently serious and sedate for the Queen's taste. Anon Her Majesty gave the signal that dancing might begin. She liked to watch it, if it was decorously performed, though she never joined in it herself. Therefore a measured and stately gavotte was danced by the young people every Thursday, and perhaps a majestic pavane afterward. But the minuet was thought unbecoming. Her Majesty sat in one of the heavy gilded chairs underneath the canopy, the other being reserved for King Louis.
Lydie watched the gavotte with dreamy, abstracted eyes; every now and then the Queen spoke to her, and the force of habit caused her to reply coherently and with that formality of expression, which Her Majesty liked to hear. But her mind was very far from her surroundings. It was accompanying Gaston de Stainville on his reckless ride through the rich plains of Normandy; her wishes sped him on his way, her gratitude for his noble self-sacrifice would have guarded him from the perils of the road.
The monotonous tune of the gavotte with its distinct and sharply defined beat, sounded to her like the measured clink of a horse's hoofs on rough hard ground. She was quite unconscious that, from every corner of the room, inquisitive and sarcastic eyes were watching all her movements.
Whilst the younger people danced, the older ones gossiped, and the absence of any known facts rendered the gossip doubly interesting.
There was one group most especially so engaged; at the further corner of the room, and with sixteen dancing pairs intervening between it and the royal daïs, there was little fear of Her Majesty overhearing any frivolous comments on the all-absorbing topic of the day, or of Madame Lydie herself being made aware of their existence.
Here Madame de la Beaume, a young and pretty matron, possessed of a good-looking husband who did not trouble her much with his company, was the centre of a gaily cackling little crowd, not unlike an assemblage of geese beside a stream at eventide. Young M. de Louvois was there and the old Duchesse de Pontchartrain, also M. Crébillon, the most inveterate scandal-monger of his time, and several others.
They all talked in whispers, glad that the music drowned every echo of this most enjoyable conversation.
"I have it from my coiffeur, whose son was on duty in an adjacent room, that there was a violent quarrel between them," said Madame de la Beaume with becoming mystery. "The man says that Madame Lydie screamed and raged for half an hour, then flew out of the room and along the passages like one possessed."
"These English are very peculiar people," said M. Crébillon sententiously. "I have it on M. de Voltaire's own authority that English husbands always beat their wives, and he spent some considerable time in England recently studying their manners and customs."
"We may take it for granted that milor Eglinton, though partly civilized through his French parentage, hath retained some of his native brutality," added another cavalier gravely.
"And it is quite natural that Madame Lydie would not tolerate his treatment of her," concluded the old Duchess.
"Ah!" sighed Madame de la Beaume pathetically, "I believe that English husbands beat their wives only out of jealousy. At least, so I have been told, whereas ours are too often unfaithful to feel any such violent and uncomfortable pangs."
"Surely," quoth young M. de Louvois, casting an admiring glance at Madame's bold décolletage, "you would not wish M. de la Beaume to lay hands on those beautiful shoulders."
"Heu! heu!" nodded Madame enigmatically.
M. Crébillon cast an inquisitorial look at Madame de Stainville, who was standing close by.
"Nay! from what I hear," he said mysteriously, "milor Eglinton had quite sufficient provocation for his jealousy, and like an Englishman he availed himself of the privileges which the customs of his own country grant him, and he frankly beat his wife."
Every one rallied round him, for he seemed to have fuller details than any one else, and Madame de la Beaume whispered eagerly:
"You mean M. de Stainville. . . ."
"Hush—sh—sh," interrupted the old Duchess quickly, "here comes miladi."
The Dowager Marchioness of Eglinton, "miladi," as she was always called, was far too shrewd and too well versed in the manners and customs of her friends not to be fully aware of the gossip that was going on all round the room. Very irate at having been kept in ignorance of the facts which had caused her son's sudden decision, and Lydie's strange attitude, she was nevertheless determined that, whatever scandal was being bruited abroad, it should prove primarily to the detriment of her daughter-in-law's reputation.
Therefore, whenever, to-night, she noted groups congregated in corners, and conversations being obviously carried on in whispers, she boldly approached and joined in the gossip, depositing a poisoned shaft here and there with great cleverness, all the more easily as it was generally supposed that she knew a great deal more than she cared to say.
"Nay! I beg of you, Mesdames and Messieurs," she now said quite cheerfully, "do not let me interrupt your conversation. Alas! do I not know its subject? . . . My poor son cannot be to blame in the unfortunate affair. Lydie, though she may be wholly innocent in the matter, is singularly obstinate."
"Then you really think that?——" queried Madame de la Beaume eagerly, and then paused, half afraid that she had said too much.
"Alas! what can I say?" rejoined miladi with a sigh. "I was brought up in the days when we women were taught obedience to our husband's wishes."
"Madame Lydie was not like to have learnt the first phrase of that wholesome lesson," quoth M. de Louvois with a smile.
"Exactly, cher Monsieur," assented miladi, as she sailed majestically on to another group.
"What did miladi mean exactly?" asked M. Crébillon.
"Oh! she is so kind-hearted, such an angel!" sighed pretty Madame de la Beaume, "she wanted to palliate Madame Lydie's conduct by suggesting that milor merely desired to forbid her future intercourse with M. de Stainville. . . . I have heard that version of the quarrel already, but I must own that it bears but little resemblance to truth. We all know that so simple a request would not have led to a really serious breach between milor and his wife."
"It was more than that, of course, or milor would not have beaten her," came in unanswerable logic from M. Crébillon.
"Hush—sh—sh!" admonished the old Duchess, "here comes His Majesty."
"He looks wonderfully good-humoured," said Madame de la Beaume, "and doth not wear at all his usual Thursday's scowl."
"Then we may all be sure, Mesdames and Messieurs," said the irrepressible Crébillon, "that rumour hath not lied again."
"What rumour?"
"You have not heard?"
"No!" came from half a dozen eager and anxious lips.
"They say that His Majesty the King of France hasagreed to deliver the Chevalier de Saint George to the English in consideration of a large sum of money."
"Impossible!"
"That cannot be true!"
"My valet had it from Monsieur de Stainville's man," protested M. Crébillon, "and he declares the rumour true."
"A King of France would never do such a thing."
"A palpable and clumsy lie!"
And the same people, who, five minutes ago, had hurled the mud of scandal at the white robes of an exceptionally high-minded and virtuous woman, recoiled with horror at the thought of any of it clinging to the person of that fat and pompous man, whom an evil fate had placed on the throne of France.
His Majesty certainly looked far less bored than he usually did on his royal consort's reception evenings. He entered the room with a good-natured smile on his face, which did not leave him, even whilst he kissed the frigid Queen's hand, and nodded to her entourage, every one of whom he cordially detested.
But when he caught sight of Lydie, he positively beamed at her, and astonished all the scandal-mongers by the surfeit of attentions which he bestowed on her. Directly after he had paid his respects to his wife and received the young scions of ancient aristocratic houses, that were being presented to him, he turned with great alacrity to Lydie and engaged her in close conversation.
"Will you honour us by stepping the pavane with us, Marquise?" he asked in sugary tones. "Alas! our dancing days should be over, yet par ma foi! we could yet tread another measure beside the tiniest feet in France."
Lydie would perhaps have been taken aback at the King's superlative amiability, but instinctively her mind reverted to the many occasions when he had thus tried to win her good graces, in the hope of obtaining concessions of money from the virtual chief of the Department of Finance. She saw that inquisitive eyes were watching her over-keenly as—unable to refuse the King's invitation—she placed areluctant hand in his, and took her position beside him for the opening of the pavane.
She was essentially graceful even in the studied stiffness of her movements; a stiffness which she had practised and then made entirely her own, and which was somehow expressive of the unbendable hauteur of her moral character.
The stately pavane suited the movements of her willowy figure, which appeared quite untrammelled, easy and full of spring, even within the narrow confines of the fashionable corslet. She was dressed in white to-night and her young shoulders looked dazzling and creamy beside the matt tone of her brocaded gown. She never allowed the ridiculous coiffure, which had lately become the mode, to hide entirely the glory of her own chestnut hair, and its rich, warm colour gleamed through the powder, scantily sprinkled over it by an artist's hand.
She had not forgotten even for a moment the serious events of this never-to-be-forgotten day; but amongst the many memories which crowded in upon her, as, with slow step she trod the grave measure of the dance, none was more vivid than that of her husband's scorn, when he spoke of her own hand resting in that of the treacherous and perfidious monarch, who would have sold his friend for money. She wondered how he would act if he could see her now, her fingers, very frequently meeting those of King Louis during the elaborate figures of the dance.
Strangely enough, although everything milor had said to her at that interview had merely jarred upon her mood and irritated her nerves, without seemingly carrying any conviction, yet now, when she was obliged to touch so often the moist, hot palm of King Louis, she felt something ofthat intolerable physical repugnance which her husband had, as it were, brought to actuality by the vigour of his suggestions.
Otherwise she took little heed of her surroundings. During the preliminary movement of the dance, the march past, with its quaint, artificial gestures and steps and the slow majesty of its music, she could not help seeing the looks of malevolent curiosity, of satisfied childish envy, and of sarcastic triumph which were levelled at her from every corner of the room.
The special distinction bestowed on her by the King—who as a rule never danced at his wife's soirées—seemed in the minds of all these gossip-lovers to have confirmed the worst rumours, anent the cause of Lord Eglinton's unexpected resignation. His Majesty did not suffer like his wife from an unconquerable horror of frisky matrons; on the contrary, his abhorrence was chiefly directed against the starchy dowagers and the prudishdévoteswho formed the entourage of the Queen. The fact that he distinguished Lydie to-night so openly, showed that he no longer classed her among the latter.
"His Majesty hath at last found a kindred spirit in the unapproachable Marchioness," was the universal comment, which thoroughly satisfied the most virulent disseminator of ill-natured scandal.
Lydie knew enough of Court life to guess what would be said. Up to now she had been happily free from Louis's compromising flatteries, save at such times when he required money, but his attentions went no further—and they invariably ceased the moment he had obtained all that he wanted. But to-night he was unswerving in his adulation;and, in the brief pause between the second and third movement of the dance, he contrived to whisper in her ear:
"Ah, Madame! how you shame your King! Shall we ever be able to adequately express the full measure of our gratitude?"
"Gratitude, Sire?" she murmured, somewhat bewildered and rather coldly, "I do not understand . . . why gratitude?"
"You are modest, Madame, as well as brave and good," he rejoined, taking one more opportunity of raising her hand to his lips. He had succeeded in gradually leading her into a window embrasure, somewhat away from the rest of the dancers. He did not admire the statuesque grace of Lydie in the least, and had always secretly sneered at her, for her masculine strength of will and the rigidity of her principles, but it had been impossible for any man, alive to a sense of what was beautiful, not to delight in the exquisitely harmonious picture formed by that elegant woman, in her stiff, white brocaded gown and with her young head crowned by its wreath of ardent hair, standing out brilliantly against the pale, buttercup colour of the damask curtain behind her. There was nothing forced therefore in the look of admiration with which the King now regarded Lydie; conscious of this, she deeply resented the look, and perhaps because of it, she was not quite so fully alive to the hidden meaning of his words as she otherwise might have been.
"And as beautiful as you are brave," added Louis unctuously. "It is not every woman who would thus have had the courage of her convictions, and so openly borne witness to the trust and loyalty which she felt."
"Indeed, Sire," she said coldly and suddenly beginning to feel vaguely puzzled, "I am afraid your Majesty is labouring under the misapprehension, that I have recently done something to deserve special royal thanks, whereas——"
"Whereas you have only followed the dictates of your heart," he rejoined gallantly, seeing that she had paused as if in search of a word, "and shown to the sceptics in this ill-natured Court that, beneath the rigid mask of iron determination, this exquisitely beautiful personality hid the true instincts of adorable womanhood."
The musicians now struck the opening chords to the third and final measure of the pavane. There is something dreamy and almost sad in this movement of the stately dance, and this melancholy is specially accentuated in the composition of Rameau, which the players were rendering with consummate art to-night. The King's unctuous words were still ringing unpleasantly in Lydie's ears, when he put out his hand, claiming hers for the dance.
Mechanically she followed him, her feet treading the measure quite independently of her mind, which had gone wandering in the land of dreams. A vague sense of uneasiness crept slowly but surely into her heart, she pondered over Louis's words, not knowing what to make of them, yet somehow beginning to fear them, or rather to fear that she might after all succeed in understanding their full meaning. She could not dismiss the certitude from her mind that he was, in some hidden sense, referring to the Stuart prince and his cause, when he spoke of "convictions" and of her "courage"; but at first she only thought that he meant, in a vague way, to recall her interference of this morning, Lord Eglinton's outburst of contempt, and her own promise to give the matter serious consideration.
This in a measure re-assured her. The King's words had already become hazy in her memory, as she had not paid serious attention to them at the time, and she gradually forced those vague fears within her to subside, and even smiled at her own cowardice in scenting danger where none existed.
Undoubtedly that was the true reason of the rapacious monarch's flatteries to-night; truth to tell, her mind had been so absorbed with actual events, her quarrel with her husband, the departure of Gaston, the proposed expedition ofLe Monarque, that she had almost forgotten the promise which she had made to the King earlier in the day, with a view to gaining time.
"How admirably you dance, Madame," said King Louis, "the poetry of motion by all the saints! Ah! believe me, I cannot conquer altogether a feeling of unutterable envy!"
"Envy, Sire, of whom?—or of what?" she asked, forced to keep up a conversation which sickened her, since etiquette did not allow her to remain silent if the King desired to talk. "Methinks fate leaves your Majesty but little to wish for."
"Envy of the lucky man who obtained a certitude, whilst we had to be content with vague if gracious promises," he rejoined blandly.
She looked at him keenly, inquiringly, a deep line of doubt, even of fear now settling between her brows.
"Certitude of what, Sire?" she asked suddenly pausing in the dance and turning to look him straight in the eyes. "I humbly crave your Majesty's pardon, but meseems thatwe are at cross-purposes, and that your Majesty speaks of something which I, on the other hand, do not understand."
"Nay! nay! then we'll not refer to the subject again," rejoined Louis with consummate gallantry, "for of a truth we would not wish to lose one precious moment of this heavenly dance. Enough that you understand, Madame, that your King is grateful, and will show his gratitude, even though his heart burn with jealousy at the good fortune of another man!"
There was no mistaking the sly leer which appeared in his eye as he spoke. Lydie felt her cheeks flaming up with sudden wrath; wrath, which as quickly gave way to an awful, an unconquerable horror.
Still she did not suspect. Her feet once more trod the monotonous measure, but her heart beat wildly against the stiff corslet; the room began to whirl round before her eyes; a sickening sense of dizziness threatened to master her. Every drop of blood had left her cheeks, leaving them ashen pale.
She was afraid; and the fear was all the more terrible as she could not yet give it a name. But the sense of an awful catastrophe was upon her, impending, not yet materialized, but which would overwhelm her inevitably when it came.
Then all at once she understood!
There at the further end of the room, against the rich gold of the curtain, she saw Gaston de Stainville standing beside his wife and one or two other women, the centre of a gaily chattering crowd, he himself chattering with them, laughing and jesting, whilst from time to time his white and slender hand raised a gold-rimmed glass to his eye, with a gesture of fatuity and affectation.
Something in her look, though it had only lasted a few seconds, must then and there have compelled his own, for he suddenly dropped his glass, and their eyes met across the room; Lydie's inquiring, only just beginning to doubt, and fearful, as if begging for reassurance! his, mocking and malicious, triumphant too and self-flattering, whilst la belle Irène, intercepting this exchange of glances, laughed loudly and shrugged her bare shoulders.
Lydie was not that type of woman who faints, or screams at moments of acute mental agony. Even now, when the full horror of what she had so suddenly realized, assailed her with a crushing blow that would have stunned a weaker nature, she contrived to pull herself together and to continue the dance to the end. The King—beginning to feel bored in the company of this silent and obviously absent-minded woman—made no further effort at conversation.She had disappointed him; for Monsieur le Comte de Stainville's innuendoes had led him to hope that the beautiful marble statue had at last come to life and would henceforth become a valuable addition to the light-hearted circle of friends that rallied round him, helping to make him forget the ennui of his matrimonial and official life.
Thus the dance was concluded between them in silence. Louis was too dull and vapid to notice the change in his partner's attitude, the icy touch of her fingers, the deathly whiteness of her lips. But presently he, too, caught sight of Gaston de Stainville and immediately there crept into his face that malicious leer, which awhile ago had kindled Lydie's wrath.
Whether she noted it now or not, it were difficult to say. Only a great determination kept her from making a display before all these indifferent eyes, of the agonizing torture of her mind and heart.
With infinite relief, she made her final curtsey to her partner, and allowed him to lead her back to her official place beside the royal daïs. She could not see clearly, for her eyes had suddenly filled with burning tears of shame and bitter self-accusation. She bit her lips lest a cry of pain escaped them.
"You are ill, my dear! Come away!"
The voice—gentle and deeply concerned—was that of her father. She did not dare look at him, lest she should break down, but she allowed him to lead her away from the immediate noise and glare.
"What is it, Lydie?" queried M. le Duc again, more anxiously, as soon as they had reached a small and secludedalcove. "Has anything further happened? Par Dieu, if that man has again dared . . ."
"What man, father?" she interrupted.
Her voice had no tone in it, she wondered even if M. le Duc would hear, but he was talking ambiguously and she had had enough of misunderstandings to-day.
"What man?" rejoined Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont irritably. "Your husband of course. I have heard rumours about his behaviour to you, and by all the heathen gods . . ."
He paused, astonished and almost awed, for Lydie had laughed suddenly, laughed loudly and long, and there was such a strange ring in that unnatural mirth, that Monsieur le Duc feared lest excitement had been too much for his daughter's brain.
"Lydie! what is it? You must tell me . . . Lydie . . ." he urged, "listen to me . . . do you hear me, Lydie?"
She seemed to be collecting her scattered senses now, but great sobs of hysterical laughter still shook her from head to foot, and she leaned against her father's arm almost as if she feared to fall.
"Yes, father dear," she said fairly coherently, "I do hear you, and I pray you take no heed of me. Much hath occurred to-day to disturb me and my nerves seem to be on the jar. Perhaps I do not see quite clearly either. Father, tell me," she added with a voice almost steady, but harsh and trenchant, and with glowing eyes fixed on the Duke's face, "did I perceive Gaston de Stainville in the crowd just now?"
"You may have done, my dear," he replied with some hesitation. "I do not know."
She had been quick enough to note that, at mention of Gaston's name, his eyes suddenly wore a curious shamefaced expression and avoided meeting her own. She pressed her point more carelessly, feeling that there was something that he would only tell her, if she was perfectly calm and natural in her questionings.
"Then he is here?" she asked.
"Yes . . . I believe so . . . why do you ask?"
"I thought him gone," she said lightly, "that was all. Methought there was an errand he had meant to perform."
"Oh! there is no immediate hurry for that!"
Monsieur le Duc d'Amont, never a very keen observer, was feeling quite reassured by her calmer mood. His daughter had been overwrought. Events had crowded in upon her, thick and fast, some of them of an unpleasant nature: her final surrender to Gaston de Stainville could not have occurred without a wrench; sentiment—he supposed—having conquered friendship and loyalty, no doubt remorse had held sway for awhile. He certainly thought his daughter quite at one with him and his confederates in the treacherous plan; it never entered his head for a moment to blame her for thisvolte-face, nor did he realize that Gaston's attitude had been one of lying infamy. He knew her for a pure-minded and exceptionally proud woman and his paternal heart had no fear that she would stoop to a vulgar intrigue, at the same time he had no reason to doubt that she had yielded to the persuasive powers of a man whom she had certainly loved at one time, who and of necessity would still exercise a certain influence over her.
And now she was no doubt anxious to know something offuture plans she had probably not heard what had been decided with regard to the expedition, and perhaps fretted as to how her own actions had been interpreted by her father and the King. It was with a view to reassuring her on all these points that he now added:
"We are not thinking of sendingLe Monarque."
"Ah? I thought that she would have been the most likely vessel. . ."
"Le Levantinwill be safer," he explained, "but she will not be ready to put to sea for five or six days, so Gaston will not start until then; but you need have no fear, dear; the orders together with the map and the precious letter, which you have given him, are quite safe in his hands. He is too deeply concerned in the success of the expedition to think of betraying you, even if his regard were less genuine. . . . And we are all deeply grateful to you, my dear . . . It was all for the best. . ."
He patted her hand with kindly affection, much relieved now, for she seemed quite calm and the colour even was coming back to her cheeks: all the afternoon he had been dreading this meeting with his daughter, for he had not seen her since he learned from Gaston that she had yielded to his entreaties, and given him the map and letter which would help the King of France to betray his friend: now he was glad to find that—save for an unusual hysterical outburst—she took the whole matter as coolly as he did himself.
There is no doubt that there are moments in life when a crisis is so acute, a catastrophe so overwhelming, that all our faculties become completely deadened: our individuality goes out of us, and we become mere dolls moving automatically by muscular action and quite independently of our brain.
Thus it was with Lydie.
Her father's words could not be misunderstood. They left her without that last faint shadow of doubt which, almost unbeknown to herself, had been her main support during the past few minutes of this intense agony. Now the tiny vestige of hope had vanished. Blank despair invaded her brain and she had the sensation as if sorrow had turned it into a pulpy mass, a great deal too bulky for her head, causing it to throb and to ache intolerably. Beyond that, the rest of herself as it were, became quite mechanical. She was glad that her father said nothing more about the scheme. She knew all that she wanted to know: Gaston's hideous, horrible treachery, the clumsy trap into which she had fallen, and above all the hopeless peril into which she had plunged the very man whom she had wished to save.
She had been the most perfidious traitor amongst them all, for the unfortunate prince had given her his friendship, and had trusted her more fully than he had others.
And then there was her husband!
Of him she would not think, for that way lay madness surely!
She managed to smile to her father, and to reassure him. Presently she would tell him all . . . to-morrow perhaps, but not just yet . . . She did not hate him somehow. She could not have hated him, for she knew him and had always loved him. But he was weak and easily misguided.
Heavens above! had anyone been more culpably weak, more misguided than she herself?
Monsieur le Duc, fully satisfied in his mind now by her outward calm, and the steady brilliance of her eyes, recalled her to her official duties.
"Dancing is over, Lydie," he said, "have you not a few presentations to Her Majesty to effect?"
"Oh yes!" she said perfectly naturally, "of a truth I had almost forgotten . . . the first time for many years, eh? my dear father. . . How some people will gossip at this remissness of Madame la Grande Maréchale de la Cour . . . will you conduct me straight away to Her Majesty? . . . I hope she has not yet noticed my absence."
She leaned somewhat heavily on her father's arm, for she was afraid that she could not otherwise have walked quite straight. She fully realized what it meant when men talked of drunkenness amongst themselves. Copious libations must produce—she thought—just this same sensation of swaying and tottering, and hideous, painful giddiness.
Already Monsieur de Louvois, Her Majesty's Chamberlain, was waiting, whilst the ladies, who were to receive the honour of special presentation, were arraigned in a semi-circle to the left of the dais. Beneath the canopy the King and Queen were standing: Louis looking as usual insufferably bored, and the Queen calmly dignified, not a little disdainful, and closely scrutinizing the bevy of women—more or less gorgeously apparelled, some old, some young, mostly rather dowdy and stiff in their appearance—who were waiting to be introduced.
Quickly, and with a respectful curtsey indicative of apology, Lydie now took her stand beside her Royal mistress and the ceremony of presentations began. The chamberlainread out a name; one unit thereupon detached itself from the feminine group, approached with sedate steps to the foot of the throne, and made a deep obeisance, whilst Madame la Grande Maréchale said a few appropriate words, that were meant to individualize that unit in the mind of the Queen.
"Madame de Balincourt. Your Majesty will deign to remember the brave General who fought at Fontenoy. Madame has eschewed country life momentarily for the honour of being presented to your Majesty."
"Enchantée, Madame," the Queen would reply graciously, offering her hand for a respectful kiss.
"Madame Helvetius, the wife of our renowned scientist and philosopher. Your Majesty is acquainted with his works."
"Enchantée, Madame!"
"And Mademoiselle Helvetius, striving to become as learned as her distinguished father, and almost succeeding so 'tis said."
The Queen deigned to say a few special words to this shydébutanteand to her mother, both primly clad in badly-fitting gowns which proclaimed the country dressmaker, but in their simplicity and gaucherie peculiarly pleasing to Her Majesty.
And thus the procession filed past. Elderly women and young girls, some twenty in all, mostly hailing from distant parts of France, where the noise and frivolity of the Court of Versailles had not even roused an echo. The Queen was very gracious. She liked this select little circle of somewhat dowdy provincials, who she felt would be quite at one with her in her desire for the regeneration of social France. Theuglier and less fashionable were the women, the more drabby and ill-fitting their clothes, the sweeter and more encouraging became Her Majesty's smile. She asked lengthy questions from her Grande Maréchale, and seemed to take a malicious delight in irritating the King, by protracting this ceremony, which she knew bored him to distraction, until he could scarcely manage to smother the yawns which continually assailed his jaws.
Suddenly Lydie felt her limbs stiffen and her throat close as if iron fingers had gripped it. She had been saying the usual platitudes anent the wife, sister or aunt of some worthy general or country squire, when Monsieur de Louvois called out a name:
"Madame la Comtesse de Stainville."
And from out the group of dowdy country matrons and starchy-lookingdévotesa brilliant figure now detached itself and glided forward with consummate grace. Irène de Stainville was approaching for presentation to the Queen, her eyes becomingly cast down, a rosy flush on her cheeks, for she was conscious that she was beautiful and that the King's wearied eyes had lighted up at sight of her.
There was something almost insolent in the gorgeousness of her gown: it was of a rich turquoise blue, that stood out, glaring and vivid against the buttercup-coloured hangings of the room. Her stiff corslet was franklydécolleté, displaying her fine shoulders and creamy bosom, on which reposed a delicately wrought turquoise necklet of exquisite design. Her hair was piled up over her head, in the monumental andoutréstyle lately decreed by Dame Fashion, and the brocade of her panniers stood out in stiff folds each side of her, like balloon-shaped supports, on which her whitearms rested with graceful ease. It seemed as if a gaudy, exotic butterfly had lost its way, and accidentally fluttered into an assembly of moths.
Gaston de Stainville stood a little behind his wife. Etiquette demanded that he should be near her, when she made her obesiance to the Queen. He, too, somehow, looked out of place among these more sedate cavaliers: there had always been a very distinct difference between the dress worn by the ladies and gentlemen of the Queen's entourage, and the more ornate style adopted by the gayer frequenters of the Court of Versailles. This difference was specially noticeable now, when this handsome young couple stood before Her Majesty, she not unlike a glittering jewel herself, he in a satin coat of pale mauve, that recalled the delicate shades of a bank of candytuft in mid-June.
The Queen no longer looked down from her daïs with an indulgent, somewhat melancholy smile. Her eyes—cold and gray as those of King Stanislaus had been—regarded with distinct disapproval these two people, who, in her rigid judgment, were naught but gaudily decked-out dolls, and who walked on high-heeled shoes that made an unpleasant noise on the polished floor.
Lydie had during the last agonizing half-hour wholly forgotten Irène de Stainville and the presentation which, on an impulse of gratitude toward Gaston, she had promised to bring about, and she certainly had not been prepared for this meeting, face to face, with the man who, for the second time in her life, had so bitterly and cruelly wronged her.
Gaston did not seem anxious to avoid her gaze. There was insolent triumph and mockery in every line of his attitude: in the head thrown a little to one side; in the eyesnarrowed until they were slits, gazing at her over the barrier of his wife's elaborate coiffure: in the slender, well-kept hand toying with the gold-rimmed eyeglass, and above all in the sensual, sneering mouth, and the full lips parted in a smile.
Lydie was hardly conscious of Irène's presence, of any one in fact, save of Gaston de Stainville, of whom she had dreamed so romantically a few hours ago, speeding him on his way, praying—God help her!—that he might be well and safe. An intense bitterness surged up in her heart, a deadly contempt for him. Awhile ago she would not have believed that she could hate anyone so. She would at this moment have gladly bartered her life for the joy of doing him some awful injury. All softness, gentleness, went out of her nature, just while she looked at Gaston and caught his mocking smile.
It was the mockery that hurt her so! The awful humiliation of it all!
And there was also in Lydie that highly sensitive sense of loyalty, which revolted at the sight of these traitors approaching, with a smile of complacency on their lips, this proud Queen who was ignorant of their infamy.
Women have often been called petty in their hates: rightly perhaps! but let us remember that their power to punish is limited, and therefore they strike as best they can. Lydie, in spite of her influence and her high position, could do so little to punish Gaston, now that by his abominable treachery he had filched every trump card from her.
She had been such an unpardonable fool—and she knew it—that her very self-abasement whipped up her sense of retaliation, her desire for some sort of revenge, into veritable fury; and thus, when la belle Irène, triumphant in the prideof her universally acknowledged beauty, came to the foot of the Royal daïs, when—through some unexplainable and occult reason—a hush of expectancy descended on all spectators, Lydie's voice was suddenly raised, trenchant and decisive: