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.
CHAPTER XXI
ROYAL THANKS
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."