"Gaston!"
M. de Stainville shook off his moodiness. The vision of la belle Irène standing there in the satin-hung boudoir, the soft glow of well-shaded candles shedding an elusive, rosy light on the exquisite figure, with head thrown back and arms stretched out in a gesture of passionate appeal, was too captivating to permit of any other thought having sway over his brain, for the next second or two at any rate.
"I thought you had completely forgotten me to-night," she said as he came rapidly toward her, "and that I should not even get speech of you."
She took his hand and led him gently to a low divan; forcing him to sit down beside her, she studied his face intently for a moment or two.
"Was it necessary?" she asked abruptly.
"You know it was, Irène," he said, divining her thoughts, plunging readily enough now into the discussion which he knew was inevitable. His whole nature rebelled against this situation; he felt a distinct lowering of his manly pride; his masterful spirit chafed at the thought of an explanation which Irène claimed the right to demand.
"I told you, Irène," he continued impatiently, "that I would speak to Mlle. d'Aumont to-night, and if possible obtain a definite promise from her."
"And have you obtained that definite promise?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Lydie d'Aumont promised you that you should be the new State-appointed Minister of Finance?" she insisted.
"Yes! I have her word."
"And—what was the cost?"
"The cost?"
"Yes, the cost," she said, with what was obviously enforced calm. "Lydie d'Aumont did not give you that promise for nothing; you gave her or promised her something in return. What was it?"
Her lips were trembling, and she had some difficulty in preventing her nervous fingers from breaking into pieces the delicate mother-of-pearl fan which they held. But she was determined to appear perfectly calm, and that he should in no way suspect her of working up to a vulgar scene of jealousy.
"You are foolish, Irène!" he said, with his characteristic nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.
"Foolish?" she repeated, still keeping her temper well under control, though it was her voice which was shaking now. "Foolish? Ma foi! when my husband obtains——"
"'Sh! 'sh! 'sh!" he said quickly, as with rough gesture he grasped her wrist, and gave it a warning pressure.
"Bah!" she retorted; "no one can hear."
"The walls have ears!"
"And if they have? I cannot keep up this deception for ever, Gaston."
"'Twere worse than foolish to founder within sight of port."
"You trust Lydie d'Aumont's word then?"
"If you will do nothing to spoil the situation!" he retorted grimly. "Another word such as you said just now, too long a prolongation of this charming tête-à-tête, and Mlle. d'Aumont will make a fresh promise to some one else."
"I was right, then?"
"Right in what?"
"Mlle. d'Aumont promised you the appointment because you made love to her."
"Irène!"
"Why don't you tell me?" she said with passionate vehemence. "Can't you see that I have been torturing myself with jealous fears? I am jealous—can I help it? I suffered martyrdom when I saw you there with her! I could not hear your words, but I could see the earnestness of your attitude. Do I not know every line of your figure, every gesture of your hand? Then the curtain fell at your touch, and I could no longer see—only divine—only tremble and fear. Mon Dieu! did I not love you as I do, were my love merely foolish passion, would I not then have screamed out the truth to all that jabbering crowd that stood between me and you, seeming to mock me with its prattle, and its irresponsible laughter? I am unnerved, Gaston," she added, with a sudden breakdown of her self-control, her voice trembling with sobs, the tears welling to her eyes, and her hands beating against one another with a movement of petulant nervosity. "I could bear it, you know, but for this secrecy, this false position; it is humiliating to me, and—Oh, be kind to me—be kind to me!" she sobbed, giving finally way to a fit of weeping. "I have spent such a miserable evening, all alone."
Stainville's expressive lips curled into a smile. "Be kind to me!"—the same pathetic prayer spoken to him by Lydie a very short while ago. Bah! how little women understood ambition! Even Lydie! Even Irène!
And these two women were nothing to him. Lydie herself was only a stepping-stone; the statuesque and headstrong girl made no appeal to the essentially masculine side of his nature, and he had little love left now for the beautiful passionate woman beside him, whom in a moment of unreasoning impulse he had bound irrevocably to him.
Gaston de Stainville aspired to military honours a couple of years ago; the Maréchal de Saint Romans, friend and mentor of the Dauphin, confidant of the Queen, seemed all-powerful then. Unable to win the father's consent to his union with Irène—for the Maréchal had more ambitious views for his only daughter and looked with ill-favour on the young gallant who had little to offer but his own handsome person, an ancient name, and a passionate desire for advancement—Gaston, who had succeeded in enchaining the young girl's affections, had no difficulty in persuading her to agree to a secret marriage.
But the wheel of fate proved as erratic in its movements as the flights of Stainville's ambition. With the appearance of Jeanne Poisson d'Étioles at the Court of Versailles, the Queen's gentle influence over Louis XV waned, and her friends fell into disfavour and obscurity. The Maréchal de Saint Romans was given an unimportant command in Flanders; there was nothing to be gained for the moment from an open alliance with his daughter. Gaston de Stainville, an avowed opportunist, paid his court to the newly risen star and was received with smiles, but he could not shake himself from the matrimonial fetters which he himself had forged.
The rapid rise of the Duc d'Aumont to power and the overwhelming ascendancy of Lydie in the affairs of State had made the young man chafe bitterly against the indestructible barrier which he himself had erected between his desires and their fulfilment. His passion for Irène did not yield to the early love of his childhood's days; it was drowned in the newly risen flood of more boundless ambition. It was merely the casting aside of one stepping-stone for another more firm and more prominent.
Just now in the secluded alcove, when the proud, reserved girl had laid bare before him the secrets of her virginal soul, when with pathetic abandonment she laid the sceptre of her influence and power at his feet, he had felt neither compunction nor remorse; now, when the woman who had trusted and blindly obeyed him asked for his help and support in a moral crisis, he was conscious only of a sense of irritation and even of contempt, which he tried vainly to disguise.
At the same time he knew well that it is never wise to tax a woman's submission too heavily. Irène had yielded to his wish that their marriage be kept a secret for the present only because she, too, was tainted with a touch of that unscrupulous ambition which was the chief characteristic of the epoch. She was shrewd enough to know that her husband would have but little chance in elbowing his way up the ladder of power—"each rung of which was wrapped in a petticoat," as M. de Voltaire had pertinently put it—if he was known to be dragging a wife at his heels; Gaston had had no difficulty in making her understand that his personality as a gay and irresponsible butterfly, as a man of fashion, and a squire of dames, was the most important factor in the coming fight for the virtual dominion of France.
She had accepted the position at first with an easy grace; she knew her Gaston, and knew that he must not be handled with too tight a curb; moreover, her secret status pleased her, whilst he remained avowedly faithful to her she liked to see him court and smile, a preux chevalier with the ladies; she relished the thought of being the jailer to that gaily-plumaged bird, whom bright eyes and smiling lips tried to entice and enchain.
But to-night a crisis had come; something in Gaston's attitude toward Lydie had irritated her beyond what she was prepared to endure. His love for her had begun to wane long ago; she knew that, but she was not inclined to see it bestowed on another. Stainville feared that she was losing self-control, and that she might betray all and lose all if he did not succeed in laying her jealous wrath to rest. He was past master in the art of dealing with a woman's tears.
"Irène," he said earnestly, "I have far too much respect for you to look upon this childish outburst of tears as representing the true state of your feelings. You are unnerved—you own it yourself. Will you allow me to hold your hand?" he said with abrupt transition.
Then as she yielded her trembling hand to him he pressed a lingering kiss in the icy cold palm.
"Will you not accept with this kiss the assurance of my unswerving faith and loyalty?" he said, speaking in that low, deep-toned voice of his which he knew so well how to make tender and appealing to the heart of women. "Irène, if I have committed an indiscretion to-night, if I allowed my ambition to soar beyond the bounds of prudence, will you not believe that with my ambition my thoughts flew up to you and only came down to earth in order to rest at your feet?"
He had drawn her close to him, ready to whisper in her ear, as he had whispered half an hour ago in those of Lydie. He wanted this woman's trust and confidence just a very little while longer, and he found words readily enough with which to hoodwink and to cajole. Irène was an easier prey than Lydie. She was his wife and her ambitions were bound up with his; her mistrust only came from jealousy, and jealousy in a woman is so easily conquered momentarily, if she be beautiful and young and the man ardent and unscrupulous.
Gaston as yet had no difficult task; but every day would increase those difficulties, until he had finally grasped the aim of his ambitious desires and had rid himself of Lydie.
"Irène!" he whispered now, for he felt that she was consoled, and being consoled, she was ready to yield. "Irène, my wife, a little more patience, a little more trust. Two days—a week—what matter? Shut your eyes to all save this one moment to-night, when your husband is at your feet and when his soul goes out to yours in one long, and tender kiss. Your lips, ma mie!"
She bent her head to him. Womanlike, she could not resist. Memory came to his aid as he pleaded, the memory of those early days on the vine-clad hills near Bordeaux, when he had wooed and won her with the savour of his kiss.