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 has agreed 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.