"Allow?" she said, with a short mocking laugh. "Surely, milor, you will not force me to refer to the compact to which you willingly subscribed when you asked me to be your wife?"
"'Tis not necessary, Madame, for I well remember it. I gave you a promise not to interfere with your life, such as you had chosen to organize it. I promised to leave youfree in thought, action, and conduct, just as you had been before you honoured me by consenting to bear my name."
"Well, then, milor?" she asked.
"This is a different matter, Mme. la Marquise," he replied calmly, "since it concerns mine own honour and that of my name. Of that honour I claim to be the principal guardian."
Then as she seemed disinclined to vouchsafe a rejoinder he continued, with just a shade more vehemence in his tone:
"The proposal which His Majesty placed before me awhile ago, that same letter which you still hold in your hand, are such vile and noisome things that actual contact with them is pollution. As I see you now with that infamous document between those fingers which I have had the honour to kiss, it seems to me as if you were clutching a hideous and venomous reptile, the very sight of which should have been loathsome to you, and from which I should have wished to see you turn as you would from a slimy toad."
"As you did yourself, milor?" she said with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, thinking of his blunder, of the catastrophe which he all but precipitated, and which her more calm diplomacy had perhaps averted.
"As I did, though no doubt very clumsily," he admitted simply, "the moment I grasped its purport to the full. To see you, my wife—yes, my wife," he repeated with unusual firmness in answer to a subtle, indefinable expression which at his words had lit up her face, "to see you pause if only for one brief half hour with that infamy before your eyes, with that vile suggestion reaching and dwellingin your brain the man who made it—be he King of France, I care not—kissing those same fingers which held the abominable thing, was unspeakably horrible in my sight; it brought real physical agony to every one of my senses. I endured it only for so long as etiquette demanded, hoping against hope that every second which went by would witness your cry of indignation, your contempt for that vile and execrable letter which, had you not interposed, I myself would have flung in the lying face of that kingly traitor. But you smiled at him in response; you took the letter from him! My God, I saw you put it in the bosom of your gown!"
He paused a moment, as if ashamed of this outburst of passion, so different to his usual impassiveness. It seemed as if her haughty look, her ill-concealed contempt, was goading him on, beyond the bounds of restraint which he had meant to impose on himself. She no longer now made an attempt to go. She was standing straight before him, leaning slightly back against the portière—a curtain of rich, heavy silk of that subtle brilliant shade, 'twixt a scarlet and a crimson, which is only met with in certain species of geranium.
Against this glowing background her slim, erect figure, stiff with unbendable pride, stood out in vivid relief. The red of the silk cast ardent reflections into her chestnut hair, and against the creamy whiteness of her neck and ear. The sober, almost conventual gray of her gown, the primly folded kerchief at her throat, the billows of lace around the graceful arm formed an exquisite note of tender colour against that glaring geranium red. In one hand she still held the letter, the other rested firmly against the curtain.The head was thrown back, the lips slightly parted and curled in disdain, the eyes—half veiled—looked at him through long fringed lashes.
A picture worthy to inflame the passion of any man. Lord Eglinton, with a mechanical movement of the hand across his forehead, seemed to brush away some painful and persistent thought.
"Nay, do not pause, milor," she said quietly. "Believe me, you interest me vastly."
He frowned and bit his lip.
"Your pardon, Madame," he rejoined more calmly now. "I was forgetting the limits of courtly manners. I have little more to say. I would not have troubled you with so much talk, knowing that my feeling in such matters can have no interest for your ladyship. When awhile ago this great bare room was at last free from the bent-backed, mouthing flatterers that surround you, I waited patiently for a spontaneous word from you, something to tell me that the honour of my name, one of the oldest in England, was not like to be stained by contact with the diplomatic by-ways of France. I had not then thought of asking for an explanation; I waited for you to speak. Instead of which I saw you take that miserable letter once more in your hand, sit and ponder over it without a thought or look for me. I saw your face, serene and placid, your attitude one of statesmanlike calm, as without a word or nod you prepared to pass out of my sight."
"Then you thought fit to demand from me an explanation of my conduct in a matter in which you swore most solemnly a year ago that you would never interfere?"
"Demand is a great word, Madame," he said, now quitegently. "I do not demand; I ask for an explanation on my knees."
And just as he had done a year ago when first she laid her hand in his and he made his profession of faith, he dropped on one knee and bent his head, until his aching brow almost touched her gown.
She looked down on him from the altitude of her domineering pride; she saw his broad shoulders, bent in perfect humility, his chestnut hair free from the conventional powder, the slender hands linked together now in a strangely nervous clasp, and she drew back because her skirt seemed perilously near his fingers.
Will the gods ever reveal the secret of a woman's heart? Lydie loathed the King's proposal, the letter which she held, just as much as Lord Eglinton did himself. Awhile ago she had hardly been able to think or to act coherently while she felt the contact of that noisome paper against her flesh. If she had smiled on Louis, if she had taken the letter away from him with vague promises that she would think the matter over, it had been solely because she knew the man with whom she had to deal better than did milor Eglinton, who had but little experience of the Court of Versailles, since he had kept away from it during the major part of his life. She had only meant to temporize with the King, because she felt sure that that was the only way to serve the Stuart Prince and to avert the treachery.
Nay, more, in her heart she felt that milor was right; she knew that when a thing is so vile and so abominable as Louis' proposed scheme, all contact with itisa pollution, and that it is impossible to finger slimy mud without some of it clinging to flesh or gown.
Yet with all that in her mind, a subtle perversity seemed suddenly to have crept into her heart, a perversity and also a bitter sense of injustice. She and her husband had been utter strangers since the day of their marriage, she had excluded him from her counsels, just as she had done from her heart and mind. She had never tried to understand him, and merely fostered that mild contempt which his diffidence and his meekness had originally roused in her. Yet at this moment when he so obviously misunderstood her, when he thought that her attitude with regard to the King's proposals was one of acceptance, or at least not of complete condemnation, her pride rose in violent revolt.
He had no right to think her so base. He had invaded her thoughts at the very moment when they dwelt on his friend and the best mode to save him; nay, more, was she not proposing to associate him, who now accused her so groundlessly, with her work of devotion and loyalty?
He should have known, he should have guessed, and now she hated him for his thoughts of her; she who had kept herself untainted in the midst of the worst corruption that ever infested a Court, whose purity of motives, whose upright judgments had procured her countless enemies amongst the imbecile and the infamous, she to be asked and begged to be loyal and to despise treachery!
Nay, she was too proud now to explain. An explanation would seem like a surrender, an acknowledgment—par Dieuof what? and certainly a humiliation.
According to milor, her husband, was there not one single upright and loyal soul in France except his own? No honour save that of his own name?
She laughed suddenly, laughed loudly and long. Manlike, he did not notice the forced ring of that merriment. He had blundered, of course, but this he did not know. In the simplicity of his heart he thought that she would have been ready to understand, that she would have explained and then agreed with him as to the best means of throwing the nefarious proposal back into the King's teeth.
At her laugh he sprang to his feet; every drop of blood seemed to have left his cheeks, which were now ashy pale.
"Nay, milor," she said with biting sarcasm, "but 'tis a mountain full of surprises that you display before my astonished fancy. Who had e'er suspected you of so much eloquence? I vow I do not understand how your lordship could have seen so much of my doings just now, seeing that at that moment you had eyes and ears only for Irène de Stainville."
"Mme. de Stainville hath naught to do with the present matter, Madame," he rejoined, "nor with my request for an explanation from you."
"I refuse to give it, milor," she said proudly, "and as I have no wish to spoil or mar your pleasures, so do I pray you to remember our bond, which is that you leave me free to act and speak, aye, and to guide the destinies of France if she have need of me, without interference from you."
And with that refinement of cruelty of which a woman's heart is sometimes capable at moments of acute crises, she carefully folded the English letter and once more slipped it into the bosom of her gown. She vouchsafed him no other look, but gathering her skirts round her she turned and left him. Calm and erect she walked the whole length of the room and then passed through another doorway finally out of his sight.
M. Durand looked flustered when Lydie suddenly entered his sanctum. But she was hardly conscious of his presence, or even of where she was.
The vast audience chamber which she had just quitted so abruptly had only the two exits; the one close to which she had left milor standing, and the other which gave into this antechamber, where M. Durand usually sat for the express purpose of separating the wheat from the chaff—or, in other words, the suppliants who had letters of introduction or passports to "le petit lever" of M. le Contrôleur-Général, from those who had not.
It was not often that Mme. la Marquise came this way at all; no doubt this accounted in some measure for M. Durand's agitation when she opened the door so suddenly. Had Lydie been less absorbed in her own thoughts she would have noticed that his hands fidgeted quite nervously with the papers on his bureau, and that his pale watery eyes wandered with anxious restlessness from her face to the heavy portière which masked one of the doors. But, indeed, at this moment neither M. Durand nor his surroundings existed for her; she crossed the antechamber rapidly without seeing him. She only wanted to get away, to put the whole enfilade of the next reception rooms between herself and the scene which had just taken place.
Something was ringing in her ears. She could not say for certain whether she had really heard it, or whether her quivering nerves were playing her a trick; but a cry had come to her across the vastness of the great audience-chamber, and rang now even through the closed door.
A cry of acute agony; a cry as of an animal in pain. The word: "Lydie!" The tone: one of reproach, of appeal, of aching, wounded passion!
She fled from it, unwilling to admit its reality, unwilling to believe her ears. She felt too deeply wounded herself to care for the pain of another. She hoped, indeed, that she had grievously hurt his pride, his self-respect, that very love which he had once professed for her, and which apparently had ceased to be.
Once he had knelt at her feet, comparing her to the Madonna, to the saints whom Catholics revered yet dared not approach; then he talked of worship, and now he spoke of pollution, of stained honour, and asked her to keep herself free from taint. What right had he not to understand? If he still loved her, he would have understood. But constant intercourse with Irène de Stainville had blurred his inward vision; the image of the Madonna, serene and unapproachable, had become faded and out of focus, and he now groped earthwards for less unattainable ideals.
That this was in any way her fault Lydie would not admit. She had become his wife because he had asked her, and because he had been willing to cover her wounded vanity with the mantle of his adoration, and the glamour of his wealth and title. He knew her for what she was: statuesque and cold, either more or less than an ordinary woman, since she was wholly devoid of sentimentality;but with a purpose in her mind and a passion for work, for power and influence. Work for the good of France! Power to attain this end!
Thus he had found her, thus he had first learned to love her! She had denied him nothing that he had ever dared to ask. This had been a bond between them, which now he had tried to break; but if he had loved her as heretofore he would not have asked, he would have known. How, and by what subtle process of his mind Lydie did not care to analyze.
He would have known: he would have understood, if he still loved her.
These two phrases went hammering in her brain, a complement to that cry which still seemed to reach her senses, although the whole enfilade of reception rooms now stretched their vastness between her and that persistent echo.
Of course his love had been naught to her. It was nothing more at best than mute, somewhat dog-like adoration: a love that demanded nothing, that was content to be, to exist passively and to worship from afar.
Womanlike, she apprised it in inverse ratio to its obtrusiveness; the less that was asked of her, the less she thought it worth while to give. But the love had always been there. At great social functions, in the midst of a crowd or in the presence of royalty, whenever she looked across a room or over a sea of faces, she saw a pair of eyes which rested on her every movement with rapt attention and unspoken admiration.
Now she would have to forego that. The love was no longer there. On this she insisted, repeating it to herself over and over again, though this seemed to increase boththe tension of her nerves, and the strange tendency to weakness, from which her proud spirit shrank in rebellion.
She was walking very rapidly now, and as she reached the monumental staircase, she ran down the steps without heeding the astonished glances of the army of flunkeys that stood about on landing and corridors. In a moment she was out on the terrace, breathing more freely as soon as she filled her lungs with the pure air of this glorious summer's day.
At first the light, the glare, the vibration of water and leaves under the kiss of the midday sun dazzled her eyes so that she could not see. But she heard the chirrup of the sparrows, the call of thrush and blackbird, and far away the hymn of praise of the skylark. Her nostrils drew in with glad intoxication the pungent fragrance of oak-leaved geraniums, and her heart called out joyfully to the secluded plantation of young beech trees there on her left, where she often used to wander.
Thither now she bent her steps. It was a favourite walk of hers, and a cherished spot, for she had it always before her when she sat in her own study at the angle of the West Wing. The tall windows of her private sanctum gave on this plantation, and whenever she felt wearied or disheartened with the great burden which she had taken on her shoulders, she would sit beside the open casements and rest her eyes on the brilliant emerald or copper of the leaves, and find rest and solace in the absolute peace they proclaimed.
And, at times like the present one, when the park was still deserted, she liked to wander in that miniature wood, crushing with delight the moist bed of moss under her feet, letting the dew-covered twigs fall back with a swish againsther hands. She found her way to a tiny glade, where a rough garden seat invited repose. The glade was circular in shape, a perfect audience chamber, wherein to review a whole army of fancies. On the ground a thick carpet of brilliant green with designs of rich sienna formed by last year's leaves, and flecks of silver of young buds not yet scorched by the midday sun; all around, walls of parallel, slender trunks of a tender gray-green colour, with bold patches of glaring viridian and gold intermixed with dull blue shadows. And then a dado of tall bracken fantastic in shape and almost weird in outline, through which there peeped here and there, with insolent luxuriance, clumps of purple and snow-white foxgloves.
Lydie sank on to the rough bench, leaning well back and resting her head against the hard, uneven back of the seat. Her eyes gazed straight upwards to a patch of vivid blue sky, almost crude and artificial-looking above the canopy of the beeches.
She felt unspeakably lonely, unspeakably forsaken. The sense of injustice oppressed her even more than the atmosphere of treachery.
Her father false and weak; her husband fickle and unjust! Prince Charles Edward abandoned, and she now powerless, probably, to carry through the work of rescue which she had planned! Until this moment she had not realized how much she had counted on her husband to help her. Now that she could no longer ask him to ride to Le Havre, and take her message to the commander ofLe Monarque, she cast about her in vain for a substitute: some one whom she could trust. Her world was made up of sycophants, of flatterers, of pleasure-loving fops. Where was the manwho would cover one hundred and eighty leagues in one night in order to redeem a promise made by France?
Her head ached with the agony of this thought. It was terrible to see her most cherished hope threatened with annihilation. Oh! had she been a man! . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes. At other times she would have scorned the weakness, now she welcomed it, for it seemed to lift the load of oppression from her heart. The glare of that vivid blue sky above weighed down her lids. She closed her eyes and for the space of a few seconds she seemed to forget everything; the world, and its treachery, the palace of Versailles, the fugitives in Scotland.
Everything except her loneliness, and the sound of that cry: "Lydie!"
As soon as M. Durand had recovered from the shock of Madame la Marquise's sudden invasion of his sanctum, he ran to the portière which he had been watching so anxiously, and, pushing it aside, he disclosed the door partially open.
"Monsieur le Comte de Stainville!" he called discreetly.
"Has she gone?" came in a whisper from the inner room.
"Yes! yes! I pray you enter, M. le Comte," said M. Durand, obsequiously holding the portière aside. "Madame la Marquise only passed through very quickly; she took notice of nothing, I assure you."
Gaston de Stainville cast a quick searching glance round the room as he entered, and fidgeted nervously with a lace handkerchief in his hand. No doubt his enforced sudden retreat at Lydie's approach had been humiliating to his pride. But he did not want to come on her too abruptly, and was chafing now because he needed a menial's help to further his desires.
"You were a fool, man, to place me in this awkward position," he said with a scowl directed at M. Durand's meek personality, "or else a knave, in which case . . ."
"Ten thousand pardons, M. le Comte," rejoined the little man apologetically. "Madame la Marquise scarcelyever comes this way afterle petit lever. She invariably retires to her study, and thither I should have had the honour to conduct you, according to your wish."
"You seem very sure that Madame la Marquise would have granted me a private audience."
"I would have done my best to obtain one for M. Le Comte," said M. Durand with becoming modesty, "and I think I should have succeeded . . . with tact and diplomacy, Monsieur le Comte, we, who are privileged to . . ."
"Yes, yes!" interrupted Gaston impatiently, "but now?"
"Ah! now it will be much more difficult. Madame la Marquise is not in her study, and . . ."
"And you will want more pay," quoth Gaston with a sneer.
"Oh! Monsieur le Comte . . ." protested Durand.
"Well! how much more?" said the Comte impatiently.
"What does M. le Comte desire?"
"To speak with Madame la Marquise quite alone."
"Heu! . . . heu! . . . it is difficult. . . ."
But Gaston de Stainville's stock of patience was running low. He never had a great deal. With a violent oath he seized the little man by the collar.
"Two louis, you knave, for getting me that audience now, at once, or my flunkey's stick across your shoulders if you fool me any longer."
M. Durand apparently was not altogether unprepared for this outburst: perhaps his peculiar position had often subjected him to similar onslaughts on the part of irate and aristocratic supplicants. Anyway, he did not seem at alldisturbed, and, as soon as the Comte's grip on his collar relaxed, he readjusted his coat and his cravat, and holding out his thin hand, he said meekly:
"The two louis I pray you, Monsieur le Comte. And," he added, when Gaston, with another oath, finally placed the two gold pieces on the meagre palm, "will you deign to follow me?"
He led the way through the large folding doors and thence along the enfilade of gorgeous reception rooms, the corridors, landings and staircase which Lydie herself had traversed just now. Gaston de Stainville followed him at a close distance, acknowledging with a curt nod here and there the respectful salutations of the many lackeys whom he passed.
M. le Comte de Stainville was an important personage at Court: Madame de Pompadour's predilection for him was well known, and His Majesty himself was passing fond of the gallant gentleman's company, whilst Madame la Comtesse was believed to hold undisputed sway over M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances.
Thus Gaston met with obsequiousness wherever he went, and this despite the fact that he was not lavish with money. M. Durand would have expected a much heavier bribe from any one else for this service which he was now rendering to the Comte.
Anon the two men reached the terrace. M. Durand then pointed with one claw-like finger to the spinney on the left.
"M. le Comte will find Madame la Marquise in yonder plantation," he said; "as for me, I dare not vacate my post any longer, for M. le Contrôleur might have need ofme, nor would Monsieur le Comte care mayhap to be seen by Madame la Marquise in my company."
Gaston assented. He was glad to be rid of the mealy-mouthed creature, of whose necessary help in this matter he was heartily ashamed. Unlike Lydie, he was quite unconscious of the beauty of this August day: neither the birds nor the acrid scent of late summer flowers appealed to his fancy, and the clump of young beech trees only interested him in so far as he hoped to find Lydie there, alone.
When he reached the little glade, he caught sight of the graceful figure, half-sitting, half-reclining in the unconscious charm of sleep. Overcome by the heat and the glare, Lydie had dozed off momentarily.
Presently something caused her to open her eyes and she saw Gaston de Stainville standing there looking at her intently.
She was taken at a disadvantage, since she had undoubtedly been asleep—if only for a moment—and she was not quite sure if her pose, when Gaston first caught sight of her, was sufficiently dignified.
"I am afraid I have disturbed you," he said humbly.
"I was meditating," she replied coldly, as she smoothed down her skirts and mechanically put a hand to her hair, lest a curl had gone astray.
Then she made as if she would rise.
"Surely you are not going?" he pleaded.
"I have my work to do. I only stayed here a moment, in order to rest."
"And I am intruding?"
"Oh, scarcely," she replied quietly. "I was about to return to my work."
"Is it so urgent?"
"The business of a nation, M. le Comte, is always urgent."
"So urgent that you have no time now to give to old friends," he said bitterly.
She shrugged her shoulders with a quick, sarcastic laugh.
"Old friends? . . . Oh! . . ."
"Yes, old friends," he rejoined quietly. "We were children together, Lydie."
"Much has occurred since then, Monsieur le Comte."
"Only one great and awful fault, which meseems hath been its own expiation."
"Need we refer to that now?" she asked calmly.
"Indeed, indeed, we must," he replied earnestly. "Lydie, am I never to be forgiven?"
"Is there aught for me to forgive?"
"Yes. An error, a grave error . . . a fault, if you will call it so . . ."
"I prefer to call it a treachery," she said.
"Without one word of explanation, without listening to a single word from me. Is that just?"
"There is nothing that you could say now, Monsieur le Comte, that I should have the right to hear."
"Why so?" he said with sudden vehemence, as he came nearer to her, and in a measure barred the way by which she might have escaped. "Even a criminal at point of death is allowed to say a few words in self-defence. Yet I was no criminal. If I loved you, Lydie, was that wrong? . . . I was an immeasurable fool, I own that," he added more calmly, being quick to note that he only angered her by his violence, "and it is impossible for a high-minded woman like yourself to understand the pitfalls which beset the path of a man, who has riches, good looks mayhapand a great name, all of which will tempt the cupidity of certain designing women, bent above all on matrimony, on influence and independence. Into one of these pitfalls I fell, Lydie . . . fell clumsily, stupidly, I own, but not inexcusably."
"You seem to forget, M. le Comte," she said stiffly, "that you are speaking of your wife."
"Nay!" he said with a certain sad dignity, "I try not to forget it. I do not accuse, I merely state a fact, and do so before the woman whom I most honour in the world, who was the first recipient of my childish confidences, the first consoler of my boyhood's sorrows."
"That was when you were free, M. le Comte, and could bring your confidences to me; now they justly belong to another and . . ."
"And by the heavens above me," he interrupted eagerly, "I do that other no wrong by bringing my sorrows to you and laying them with a prayer for consolation at your feet."
He noted that since that first desire to leave him, Lydie had made no other attempt to go. She was sitting in the angle of the rough garden seat, her graceful arm resting on the back, her cheek leaning against her hand. A gentle breeze stirred the little curls round her head, and now, when he spoke so earnestly and so sadly about his sorrow, a swift look of sympathy softened the haughty expression of her mouth.
Quick to notice it, Gaston nevertheless in no way relaxed his attitude of humble supplication; he stood before her with head bent, his eyes mostly riveted on the ground.
"There is so little consolation that I can give," she said more gently.
"There is a great one, if you will but try."
"What is it?"
"Do not cast me out from your life altogether. Am I such a despicable creature that you cannot now and then vouchsafe me one kind look? . . . I did wrong you . . . I know it. . . . Call it treachery if you must, yet when I look back on that night, meseems I am worthy of your pity. Blinded by my overwhelming love for you, I forgot everything for one brief hour . . . forgot that I had sunk deeply in a pitfall—by Heaven through no fault of mine own! . . . forgot that another now had a claim on that love which never was mine to give, since it had always been wholly yours. . . . Yes! I forgot! . . . the music, the noise, the excitement of the night, your own beauty, Lydie, momentarily addled my brain. . . . I forgot the past, I only lived for the present. Am I to blame because I am a man and that you are exquisitely fair?"
He forced himself not to raise his voice, not to appear eager or vehement. Lydie only saw before her a man whom she had once loved, who had grievously wronged her, but who now stood before her ashamed and humbled, asking with utmost respect for her forgiveness of the past.
"Let us speak of it no longer," she said, "believe me, Gaston, I have never borne you ill-will."
For the first time she had used his Christian name. The layer of ice was broken through, but the surface of the lake was still cold and smooth.
"Nay! but you avoid me," he rejoined seeking to meet her eyes, "you treat me with whole-hearted contempt, whilst I would lay down my life to serve you, and this inall deference and honour, as the martyrs of old laid down their life for their faith."
"Protestations, Gaston," she said with a quick sigh.
"Let me prove them true," he urged. "Lydie, I watched you just now, while you slept; it was some minutes and I saw much. Your lips were parted with constant sighs; there were tears at the points of your lashes. At that moment I would have gladly died if thereby I could have eased your heart from the obvious burden which it bore."
Emboldened by her silence, and by the softer expression of her face, he sat down close beside her, and anon placed his hand on hers. She withdrew it quietly and serenely as was her wont, but quite without anger.
She certainly felt no anger toward him. Strangely enough, the anger she did feel was all against her husband. That Gaston had seen her grief was in a measure humiliating to her pride, and this humiliation she owed to the great wrong done her by milor. And Gaston had been clever at choosing his words; he appealed to her pity and asked for forgiveness. There was no attempt on his part to justify himself, and his self-abasement broke down the barrier of resentment which up to now she had set up against him. His respectful homage soothed her wounded pride, and she felt really, sincerely sorry for him.
The fact that her own actions had been so gravely misunderstood also helped Gaston's cause; she felt that, after all, she too might have passed a hasty, unconsidered judgment on him, and knew now how acutely such a judgment can hurt.
And he spoke very earnestly, very simply: remember that she had loved him once, loved and trusted him. Hehad been the ideal of her girlhood, and though she had remorselessly hurled him down from his high pedestal since then, there remained nevertheless, somewhere in the depths of her heart, a lingering thought of tenderness for him.
"Lydie!" he now said appealingly.
"Yes?"
"Let me be the means of easing your heart from its load of sorrow. You spoke of my wife just now. See, I do not shirk the mention of her name. I swear to you by that early love for you which was the noblest, purest emotion of my life, that I do not wrong her by a single thought when I ask for your friendship. You are so immeasurably superior to all other women, Lydie, that in your presence passion itself becomes exalted and desire transformed into a craving for sacrifice."
"Oh! how I wish I could believe you, Gaston," she sighed.
"Try me!"
"How?"
"Let me guess what troubles you now. Oh! I am not the empty-headed fop that you would believe. I have ears and eyes, and if I hold aloof from Court intrigues, it is only because I see too much of their inner workings. Do you really believe that I do not see what goes on around me now? Do I not know how your noble sympathy must at this very moment be going out to the unfortunate young prince whom you honour with your friendship? Surely, surely, you cannot be a party to the criminal supineness which at this very moment besets France, and causes her to abandon him to his fate?"
"Not France, Gaston," she protested.
"And not you, surely. I would stake my life on your loyalty to a friend."
"Of course," she said simply.
"I knew it," he ejaculated triumphantly, as if this discovery had indeed caused him joyful surprise. "Every fibre in my soul told me that I would not appeal to you in vain. You are clever, Lydie, you are rich, you are powerful. I feel as if I could turn to you as to a man. Prince Charles Edward Stuart honoured me with his friendship: I am not presumptuous when I say that I stood in his heart second only to Lord Eglinton. . . . But because I hold a secondary place I dared not thrust my advice, my prayers, my help forward, whilst I firmly believed that his greater friend was at work on his behalf. But now I can bear the suspense no longer. The crisis has become over-acute. The Stuart prince is in deadly danger, not only from supineness but from treachery."
Clever Gaston! how subtle and how shrewd! she would never have to come to meet him on this ground, but he called to her. He came to fetch her, as it were, and led her along the road. He did not offer to guide her faltering footsteps, he simulated lameness, and asked for assistance instead of offering it.
So clever was this move that Lydie was thrown off her guard. At the word "treachery" she looked eagerly into his eyes.
"What makes you think . . . ?" she asked.
"Oh! I have scented it in the air for some days. The King himself wears an air of shamefacedness when the Stuart prince is mentioned. Madame de Pompadour lately hath talked freely of the completion of her château in the Parc aux Cerfs, as if money were forthcoming from someunexpected source; then a letter came from England, which His Majesty keeps hidden in his pocket, whilst whispered conversations are carried on between the King and Madame, which cease abruptly if any one comes within earshot. Then to-day . . ."
"Yes? . . . to-day?" she asked eagerly.
"I hardly dare speak of it."
"Why?"
"I fear it might give you pain."
"I am used to pain," she said simply, "and I would wish to know."
"I was in the antechamber when His Majesty arrived forle petit leverof M. le Contrôleur. I had had vague hopes of seeing you this morning, and lingered about the reception rooms somewhat listlessly, my thoughts dwelling on all the sad news which has lately come from Scotland. In the antechamber His Majesty was met by M. le Duc d'Aumont, your father."
He paused again as if loth to speak, but she said quite calmly:
"And you overheard something which the Duke, my father, said to the King, and which confirmed your suspicions. What was it?"
"It was His Majesty who spoke, obviously not aware that I was within earshot. He said quite airily: 'Oh! if we cannot persuade milor we must act independently of him. The Stuart will be tired by now of living in crags and will not be so chary of entrusting his valuable person to a comfortable French ship.' Then M. le Duc placed a hand on His Majesty's arm warning him of my presence and nothing more was said."
"Then you think that the King of France is about to deliver Prince Charles Edward Stuart to his enemies?" she asked calmly.
"I am sure of it: and the thought is more than I can bear. And I am not alone in this, Lydie. The whole of France will cry out in shame at such perfidy. Heaven knows what will come of it ultimately, but surely, surely we cannot allow that unfortunate young prince whom we all loved andfêtedto be thus handed over to the English authorities! That is why I have dared intrude on you to-day. Lydie," he added now in a passionate appeal; "for the sake of that noble if misguided young prince, will you try and forget the terrible wrong which I in my madness and blindness once did you? Do not allow my sin to be expiated by him! . . . I crave your help for him on my knees. . . . Hate me an you will! despise me and punish me, but do not deny me your help for him!"
His voice, though sunk now almost to a whisper, was vibrating with passion. He half dropped on his knees, took the edge of her skirt between his fingers and raised it to his lips.
Clever, clever Gaston! he had indeed moved her. Her serenity had gone, and her cold impassiveness. She sat up, erect, palpitating with excitement, her eyes glowing, her lips parted, all her senses awake and thrilling with this unexpected hope.
"In what manner do you wish for my help, Gaston?"
"I think the King and M. le Duc will do nothing for a day or two at any rate. I hoped I could forestall them, with your help, Lydie, if you will give it. I am not rich, but I have realized some of my fortune: my intention was tocharter a seaworthy boat, equip her as well as my means allowed and start for Scotland immediately, and then if possible to induce the prince to cross over with me to Ireland, or, with great good luck I might even bring him back as far as Brittany. But you see how helpless I was, for I dared not approach you, and I do not know where I can find the prince."
"And if I do not give you that help which you need?" she asked.
"I would still charter the vessel and start for Scotland," he replied quietly. "I cannot stay here, in inactivity whilst I feel that infamous treachery is being planned against a man with whom I have often broken bread. If you will not tell me where I can find Charles Edward Stuart, I will still equip a vessel and try and find him somehow. If I fail, I will not return, but at any rate I shall then not be a party or a witness to the everlasting shame of France!"
"Your expedition would require great pluck and endurance."
"I have both, and boundless enthusiasm to boot. Two or three friends will accompany me, and my intention was to start for Brest or Le Havre to-night. But if you will consent to help me, Lydie . . ."
"Nay!" she interrupted eagerly. "I'll not help you. 'Tis you who shall help me!"
"Lydie!"
"The plan which you have formed I too had thought on it: the treachery of the King of France, my God! I knew it too. But my plans are more mature than yours, less noble and self-sacrificing, for, as you say, I have power and influence; yet with all that power I could not serve PrinceCharles Edward as I would wish to do, because though I have pluck and endurance I am not a man."
"And you want me to help you? Thank God! thank God for that! Tell me what to do."
"To start for Le Havre—not Brest."
"Yes!"
"This afternoon . . . reaching Le Havre before dawn."
"Yes."
"There to seek outLe Monarque. She lies in the harbour, and her commander is Captain Barre."
"Yes! yes!"
"You will hand him over a packet, which I will give you anon, and then return here as swiftly as you went."
"Is that all?" he asked in obvious disappointment, "and I who had hoped that you would ask me to give my life for you!"
"The faithful and speedy performance of this errand, Gaston, is worth the most sublime self-sacrifice, if this be purposeless. The packet will contain full instructions for Captain Barre how and where to find Prince Charles Edward.Le Monarqueis ready equipped for the expedition, but . . ." she paused a moment as if half ashamed of the admission, "I had no one whom I could entrust with the message."
Gaston de Stainville was too keen a diplomatist to venture on this delicate ground. He had never once mentioned her husband's name, fearing to scare her, or to sting her pride. He knew her to be far too loyal to allow condemnation of her lord by the lips of another man; all he said now was a conventional:
"I am ready!"
Then she rose and held out her hand to him. He bowed with great deference, and kissed the tips of her fingers. His face expressed nothing but the respectful desire to be of service, and not one thought of treachery disturbed Lydie's serenity. Historians have, we know, blamed her very severely for this unconditional yielding of another's secret into the keeping of a man who had already deceived her once; but it was the combination of circumstances which caused her to act thus, and Gaston's masterly move in asking for her help had completely subjugated her. She would have yielded to no other emotion, but that of compassion for him, and the desire to render him assistance in a cause which she herself had so deeply at heart. She had no love for Gaston and no amount of the usual protestations would have wrung a confidence from her. But he had so turned the tables that it appeared that he was confiding in her; and her pride, which had been so deeply humiliated that self-same morning, responded to his appeal. If she had had the least doubt or fear in her mind, she would not have given up her secret, but as he stood so coldly and impassively before her, without a trace of passion in his voice or look, she had absolutely no misgivings.
"I can be in the saddle at four o'clock," he said in the same unemotional tones, "when and how can I receive the packet from you?"
"Will you wait for me here?" she replied. "The packet is quite ready, and the walls of the palace have eyes and ears."
Thus they parted. She full of confidence and hope, not in any way attempting to disguise before him the joy and gratitude which she felt, he the more calm of the two, fearingto betray his sense of triumph, still trembling lest her present mood should change.
Her graceful figure quickly disappeared among the trees. He gave a sigh of intense satisfaction. His Majesty would be pleased, and Madame de Pompadour would be more than kind. Never for a moment did the least feeling of remorse trouble his complacent mind; the dominant thought in him was one of absolute triumph and pride at having succeeded in hoodwinking the keenest statesman in France. He sat down on the garden seat whereon had been fought that close duel between himself and the woman whom he had once already so heartlessly betrayed. He thought over every stage of the past scene and smiled somewhat grimly. He felt quite sure that he individually would never have trusted for the second time a woman who had once deceived him. But Lydie had no such misgivings; as she now sped through the park, she no longer saw its artificiality, its stunted rose trees and the stultified plantations. The air was invigorating to breathe, the fragrance of the flowers was sweet, the birds' twitter was delicious to the ear. There were good and beautiful things in this world, but the best of all was the loyalty of a friend.
Lydie returned to the palace in a very different frame of mind than when, half an hour ago, she had run along corridor and staircase, her nerves on the jar, her whole being smarting under the sense of wrong and of injustice.
Hope had consoled her since then, and the thought that her own cherished plan need not fail for want of a loyal man's help had in a measure eased that strange obsession which had weighed on her heart, and caused foolish tears to start to her eyes. She was also conscious of a certain joy in thinking that the companion of her childhood, the man who had been her earliest ideal was not so black a traitor as she had believed.
Gaston had spoken of pitfalls, he owned to having been deceived, and there is no woman living who will not readily admit that her successful rival is naught but a designing minx. Gaston had always been weak where women were concerned, and Lydie forgave him his weakness, simply because he had owned to it and because she liked to think of his fault as a weakness rather than as a deliberate treachery.
Now she only thought of her project. When first she had talked of commissioningLe Monarque, milor had entrusted her with all necessary directions by which Captain Barre could most easily reach the Stuart prince and hisfriends. It was but a very few weeks, nay days ago, that she had been quite convinced that the King himself would be foremost in the general desire to fit out an expedition for the rescue of the unfortunate Jacobites, and naturally the fitting-out of such an expedition would have been entrusted primarily to herself and incidentally to her husband.
These directions she still had. All she had to do now was to embody them in the secret orders which Gaston de Stainville would hand over to the Commander ofLe Monarque. Further orders would be anent getting the prince and his friends on board, and the route to be taken homeward, the better to ensure their safety.
Beyond that she would need some sort of token which, when shown to Charles Edward Stuart by Captain Barre, would induce the young prince to trust himself and his friends unconditionally toLe Monarque. Lord Eglinton's signet ring had been spoken of for this object the day of the Young Pretender's departure, but now of course she could not ask milor for it. On the other hand she felt quite sure that a written word from her would answer the necessary purpose, a brief note sealed with the Eglinton arms.
The thought of the seal as an additional message of good faith first occurred to her when she once more reached the West Wing of the palace.
From the great square landing where she now stood, a monumental door on her right gave on her own suite of apartments. On the left was the long enfilade of reception rooms, with the vast audience chamber and milor's own withdrawing room beyond.
She deliberately turned to the left, and once more traversed the vast and gorgeous halls where, half an hour ago, she had suffered such keen humiliation and such overwhelming disappointment. She forced herself not to dwell on that scene again, and even closed her eyes with a vague fear that the mental vision might become materialized.
Beyond the audience chamber there were two or three more reception rooms, and from the last of these a door masked by a heavy portière, gave on milor's study. All these apartments were now deserted, save for a few flunkeys who stood about desultorily in the window embrasures. From one of them Lydie asked if M. le Contrôleur des Finances was within, but no one remembered having seen milor since thepetit lever, and it was generally thought that he had gone to Trianon. Lydie hesitated a moment before she opened the door; she scarcely ever entered this portion of the palace and had never once been in milor's private rooms. But she wanted that seal with the Eglinton arms, and would not admit, even to herself, that her husband's presence or absence interested her in the least.
But on the threshold she paused. Milor was sitting at a gigantic escritoire placed squarely in front of the window. He had obviously been writing; at the slight sound of the creaking door and the swish of Lydie's skirts, he raised his head from his work and turned to look at her.
Immediately he rose.
"Your pardon for this intrusion, milor," she said coldly, "your lacqueys gave me to understand that you were from home."
"Is there anything that you desire?"
"Only a seal with the Eglinton arms," she replied quite casually, "I have need of it for a private communication."
He sought for the seal among the many costly objects which littered his table and handed it to her.
"I am sorry that you should have troubled to come so far for it," he said coldly, "one of my men would have taken it to your study."
"And I am sorry that I should have disturbed you," she rejoined. "I was told that you had gone to Trianon."
"I shall be on my way thither in a few moments, to place my resignation in the hands of His Majesty."
"Your resignation?"
"As I have had the honour to tell you."
"Then you will leave Versailles?"
"To make way for my successor, as soon as His Majesty hath appointed one."
"And you go . . . whither?" she asked.
"Oh! what matter?" he replied carelessly, "so long as I no longer trouble your ladyship with my presence."
"Then you will have no objection if I return to my father until your future plans are more mature?"
"Objection?" he said with a pleasant little laugh. "Nay, Madame, you are pleased to joke."
She felt a little bewildered: this unexpected move on his part had somehow thrown all her plans out of gear. For the moment she scarcely had time to conjecture, even vaguely, what her own future actions would be if her husband no longer chose to hold an important position in the Ministry. The thought that his resignation would of necessity mean her own, suddenly rushed into her mind with overwhelming violence, but she was too confused at present to disentangle herself from the maze of conflicting emotions which assailed her, when first she realized the unexpected possibility.
She was toying with the seal, forgetful somehow of the purpose and the plans which it represented. These not being in jeopardy through milor's extraordinary conduct, she could afford to dismiss them from her mind.
It was the idea of her husband's resignation and her own future which troubled her, and strangely enough there was such an air of finality about his attitude that, for the moment, she was somewhat at a loss how to choose a line of argument with which to influence him. That she could make him alter his decision she never doubted for a moment, but since the first day of their married life he had never taken any initiative in an important matter, and his doing so at this moment found her at first wholly unprepared.
"Am I to understand that my wishes in so vital a decision are not to be consulted in any way?" she asked after a momentary pause.
"You will honour me, Madame, by making me acquainted with them," he replied.
"You must reconsider your resignation," she said decisively.
"That is not possible."
"I have much important business of the nation in hand which I could not hand over to your successor in an incomplete state," she said haughtily.
"There is no necessity for that, Madame, nor for depriving the nation of your able, guiding hand. The post of Comptroller of Finance need not be filled immediately. It can remain in abeyance and under your own matchless control, at the pleasure of His Majesty and M. le Duc d'Aumont, neither of whom will, I am sure, desire to makea change in an administration, which is entirely for the benefit of France."
She looked at him very keenly, through narrowed lids scanning his face and trying to read his intent. But there was obviously no look of sarcasm in his eyes, nor the hint of a sneer in the even placidity of his voice. Once more that unaccountable feeling of irritation seemed to overmaster her, the same sense of wrath and of injustice which had assailed her when she first spoke to him.
"But this is senseless, milor," she said impatiently. "You seem to forget that I am your wife, and that I have a right to your protection, and to a fitting home if I am to leave Versailles."
"I am not forgetting that you are my wife, Madame, but my protection is worth so little, scarcely worthy of your consideration. As for the rest, my château of Vincennes is entirely at your disposal; a retinue of servants is there awaiting your orders, and my notary will this day prepare the deed which I have commanded wherein I humbly ask you to accept the château, its lands and revenues as a gift from me, albeit these are wholly unworthy of your condescension."
"It is monstrous, milor, and I'll not accept it," she retorted. "Think you perchance I am so ready to play therôleof a forsaken wife?"
A strange thought had been gradually creeping into her mind: a weird kind of calculation whereby she put certain events in juxtaposition to one another: the departure of Gaston de Stainville, for he had told her that he was prepared to go to Scotland whether she helped him in his expedition or not: then Irène would be temporarily free, almosta widow since Gaston's return under those circumstances would have been more than problematical; and now milor calmly expressing the determination to quit Versailles, and to give away his château and lands of Vincennes, forsooth, as a sop to the forsaken wife, whilst Madame de Stainville's provocative attitude this morning more than bore out this conclusion.
Lydie felt as if every drop of blood in her body rushed up violently to her cheeks, which suddenly blazed with anger, whilst his, at her suggestion, had become a shade more pale.
"I am free to suppose, milor, that Madame de Stainville has something to do with your sudden decision!" she said haughtily; "therefore, believe me, I have no longer a wish to combat it. As the welfare of France, the work which I have in hand, interests you so little, I will not trouble you by referring to such matters again. By all means place your resignation in His Majesty's hands. I understand that you desire to be free. I only hope that you will assist me in not washing too much of our matrimonial linen in public. I have many enemies and I must refuse to allow your whims and fantasies to annihilate the fruits of my past labours, for the good of my country. I will confer with Monsieur le Duc, my father; you will hear my final decision from him."
She turned once more toward the door. He had not spoken one word in interruption, as with a harsh and trenchant voice she thus hurled insult upon insult at him. She only saw that he looked very pale, although his face seemed to her singularly expressionless: whilst she herself was conscious of such unendurable agony, that she feared shemust betray it in the quiver of her mouth, and the tears which threatened to come to her eyes.
When she ceased speaking, he bowed quite stiffly, but made no sign of wishing to defend himself. She left the room very hurriedly: in another second and she would have broken down. Sobs were choking her, an intolerable anguish wrung her heartstrings to that extent, that if she had had the power, she would have wounded him physically, as she hoped that she had done now mentally. Oh! if she had had the strength, if those sobs that would not be denied had not risen so persistently in her throat, she would have found words of such deadly outrage, as would at least have stung him and made him suffer as she was suffering now.
There are certain pains of the heart that are so agonizing, that only cruelty will assuage them. Lydie's strong, passionate nature perpetually held in check by the force of her great ambition and by her will to be masculine and firm in the great purpose of her life, had for once broken through the trammels which her masterful mind had fashioned round it. It ran riot now in her entire being. She was conscious of overwhelming, of indomitable hate.
With burning eyes and trembling lips she hurried through the rooms, and along the interminable corridors. The flunkeys stared at her as she passed, she looked so different to her usual composed and haughty self: her cheeks were flaming, her bosom heaving beneath the primly-folded kerchief, and at intervals a curious moan-like sound escaped her lips.
Thus she reached her own study, a small square room at the extreme end of the West Wing, two of its walls formedan angle of the structure, with great casement windows which gave on that secluded spinney, with its peaceful glade which she loved.
As soon as she entered the room her eyes fell on that distant beech plantation. A great sigh rose from her oppressed heart, for suddenly she had remembered her great purpose, the one project which was infinitely dear to her.
The graceful beech trees far away, with their undergrowth of bracken and foxgloves gleaming in the sun, recalled to her that Gaston was waiting in their midst for her message toLe Monarque.
Thank God, this great joy at least was not denied her. She still had the power and the will to accomplish this all-pervading object of her life: the rescue of the Stuart prince from the hands of his enemies and from the perfidy of his whilom friends.
This thought, the recollection of her talk with Gaston, the work which still remained for her to do, eased the tension of her nerves and stilled the agonizing pain of her heart.
With a tremendous effort of will she chased away from her mental vision the picture of that pale, expressionless face, which seemed to haunt her. She forced herself to forget the humiliation, the injustice, the affront which she had suffered to-day, and not to hear the persistent echo of the deadly insults which she had uttered in response.
Her study was cool and dark; heavy curtains of soft-toned lavender fell beside the windows, partially shutting out the glare of the midday sun. Her secretaire stood inthe centre of the room. She sat down near it and unlocked a secret drawer. For the next quarter of an hour her pen flew across two sheets of paper. She had in front of her a map of a certain portion of the West Coast of Scotland, with directions and other sundry notes carefully written in the margins, and she was writing out the orders for the commander ofLe Monarqueto reach that portion of the coast as quickly as possible, to seek out Prince Charles Stuart, who would probably be on the look-out for a French vessel, and having got him, and as many friends of his as accompanied him, safely aboard, to skirt the West Coast of Ireland and subsequently to reach Morlaix in Brittany, where the prince would disembark.
There was nothing flustered or undetermined about her actions, she never paused a moment to collect her thoughts for obedient to her will they were already arrayed in perfect order in her mind: she had only to transfer them to paper.
Having written out the orders for Captain Barre she carefully folded them, together with the map, and fastened and sealed them with the official seal of the Ministry of Finance: then she took one more sheet of paper and wrote in a bold clear hand: