A shrill laugh suddenly broke on their ears. So absorbed had Lydie been in her dream that she had completely forgotten the other world, the one that laughed and talked, that fought and bickered on the other side of the damask curtain which was the boundary of her own universe.
Gaston de Stainville, we may assume, was not quite so unprepared for interruption as the young girl, for even before the shrill laugh had expended itself, he was already on his feet, and had drawn the damask curtain back again, interposing the while his broad figure between Lydie d'Aumont and the unwelcome intruder on their privacy.
"Ah! at last you are tracked to earth, mauvais sujet," said Mme. de Pompadour, as soon as the Comte de Stainville stood fully revealed before her. "Faith! I have had a severe task. His Majesty demanded your presence a while ago, sir, and hath gone to sleep in the interval of waiting. Nay! nay! you need make neither haste nor excuses. The King sleeps, Monsieur, else I were not here to remind you of duty."
She stood at the bottom of the steps looking up with keen, malicious eyes at Gaston's figure framed in the opening of the alcove, and peering inquisitively into the sombre recesses, wherein already she had caught a glimpse of a white satin skirt and the scintillation of many diamonds.
"What say you, milady?" she added, turning to the florid, somewhat over-dressed woman who stood by her side. "Shall we listen to the excuses M. de Stainville seems anxious to make; meseems they are clad in white satin and show a remarkably well-turned ankle."
But before Lady Eglinton could frame a reply, Lydie d'Aumont had risen, and placing her hand on Stainville's shoulder, she thrust him gently aside and now stood smiling beside him, perfectly self-possessed, a trifle haughty, looking down on Jeanne de Pompadour's pert face and on the older lady's obviously ill-humoured countenance.
"Nay, Mme. la Marquise," she said, in her own quiet way, "M. le Comte de Stainville's only excuse for his neglect of courtly duties stands before you now."
"Ma foi, Mademoiselle!" retorted the Marquise somewhat testily. "His Majesty, being over-gallant, would perhaps be ready enough to accept it, and so, no doubt, would the guests of M. le Duc, your father—always excepting Mlle, de St. Romans," she added, with more than a point of malice, "and she is not like to prove indulgent."
But Lydie was far too proud, far too conscious also of her own worth, to heed the petty pinpricks which the ladies of the Court of Louis XV were wont to deal so lavishly to one another. She knew quite well that Gaston's name had oft been coupled with that of Mlle. de St. Romans—"la belle brune de Bordeaux," as she was universally called—daughter of the gallant Maréchal just home from Flanders. This gossip was part and parcel of that multifarious scandal to which she had just assured her lover that she no longer would lend an ear.
Therefore she met Mme. de Pompadour's malicious look with one of complete indifference, and ignoring the remark altogether, she said calmly, without the slightest tremor in her voice or hint of annoyance in her face:
"Did I understand you to say, Madame, that His Majesty was tired and desired to leave?"
The Marquise looked vexed, conscious of the snub; she threw a quick look of intelligence to Lady Eglinton, which Lydie no doubt would have caught had she not at that moment turned to her lover in order to give him a smile of assurance and trust.
He, however, seemed self-absorbed just now, equally intent in avoiding her loving glance and Mme. de Pompadour's mocking gaze.
"The King certainly asked for M. de Stainville a while ago," here interposed Lady Eglinton, "and M. le Chevalier de Saint George has begun to make his adieux."
"We'll not detain Mlle. d'Aumont, then," said Mme. de Pompadour. "She will wish to bid our young Pretender an encouraging farewell! Come, M. de Stainville," she added authoritatively, "we'll to His Majesty, but only for two short minutes, then you shall be released man, have no fear, in order to make your peace with la belle brune de Bordeaux. Brrr! I vow I am quite frightened; the minx's black eyes anon shot daggers in this direction."
She beckoned imperiously to Gaston, who still seemed ill at ease, and ready enough to follow her. Lydie could not help noting with a slight tightening of her heartstrings with what alacrity he obeyed.
"Men are so different!" she sighed.
She would have allowed the whole world to look on and to sneer whilst she spent the rest of the evening beside her lover, talking foolish nonsense, planning out the future, or sitting in happy silence, heedless of sarcasm, mockery, or jests.
Her eyes followed him somewhat wistfully as he descended the two steps with easy grace, and with a flourishing bow and a "Mille grâces, Mlle. Lydie!" he turned away without another backward look, and became merged with the crowd.
Her master and future lord, the man whose lips had touched her own! How strange!
She herself could not thus have become one of the throng. Not just yet. She could not have detached herself from him so readily. For some few seconds—minutes perhaps—her earnest eyes tried to distinguish the pale mauve of his coat in the midst of that ever-changing kaleidoscope of dazzling colours. But the search made her eyes burn, and she closed them with the pain.
Men were so different!
And though she had learned much, understood much, with that first kiss, she was still very ignorant, very inexperienced, and quite at sea in those tortuous paths wherein Gaston and Mme. de Pompadour and all the others moved with such perfect ease.
In the meanwhile, M. de Stainville and the Marquise had reached the corridor. From where they now stood they could no longer see the alcove whence Lydie's aching eyes still searched for them in vain; with a merry little laugh Madame drew her dainty hand away from her cavalier's arm.
"There! am I not the beneficent fairy, you rogue?" she said, giving him a playful tap with her fan. "Fie! Will you drive in double harness? You'll come to grief, fair sir, and meseems 'twere not good to trifle with either filly."
"Madame, I entreat!" he protested feebly, wearied of the jest. But he tried not to scowl or to seem impatient, for he was loth to lose the good graces of a lady whose power and influence were unequalled even by Lydie d'Aumont.
Pompadour had favoured him from the very day of her first entry in the brilliant Court of Versailles. His handsome face, his elegant manners, and, above all, his reputation as a consummate mauvais sujet had pleased Mme. la Marquise. Gaston de Stainville was never so occupied with pleasures or amours, but he was ready to pay homage to one more beautiful woman who was willing to smile upon him.
But though she flirted with Gaston, the wily Marquise had no wish to see him at the head of affairs, the State-appointed controller of her caprices and of the King's munificence. He was pleasant enough as an admirer, unscrupulous and daring; but as a master? No.
The thought of a marriage between Mlle. d'Aumont and M. de Stainville, with its obvious consequences on her own future plans, was not to be tolerated for a moment; and Madame wondered greatly how far matters had gone between these two, prior to her own timely interference.
"There!" she said, pointing to an arched doorway close at hand; "go and make your peace whilst I endeavour to divert His Majesty's thoughts from your own wicked person; and remember," she added coquettishly as she bobbed him a short, mocking curtsey, "when you have reached the blissful stage of complete reconciliation, that you owe your happiness to Jeanne de Pompadour."
Etiquette demanded that he should kiss the hand which she now held extended toward him; this he did with as good a grace as he could muster. In his heart of hearts he was wishing the interfering lady back in the victualler's shop of Paris; he was not at all prepared at this moment to encounter the jealous wrath of "la Belle brune de Bordeaux."
Vaguely he thought of flight, but Mme. de Pompadour would not let him off quite so easily. With her own jewelled hand she pushed aside the curtain which masked the doorway, and with a nod of her dainty head she hinted to Gaston to walk into the boudoir.
There was nothing for it but to obey.
"Mlle. de Saint Romans," said the Marquise, peeping into the room in order to reassure herself that the lady was there and alone, "see, I bring the truant back to you. Do not be too severe on him; his indiscretion has been slight, and he will soon forget all about it, if you will allow him to make full confession and to do penance at your feet."
Then she dropped the curtain behind Gaston de Stainville, and, as an additional precaution, lest those two in there should be interrupted too soon, she closed the heavy folding doors which further divided the boudoir from the corridor.
"Now, if milady plays her cards cleverly," she murmured, "she and I will have done a useful evening's work."