He cast an amorous glance at Madame, who promptly rewarded him with a gracious smile.
"I think that is all which we need say for the present M. le Comte," concluded His Majesty; "within six days from now you should be on your way to Brest where Le Levantin should by then be waiting her orders and ready to put to sea. A month later, if wind, weather and circumstances favour us, that young adventurer will have been handed over to the English authorities and we, who had worked out the difficult diplomatic problems so carefully, will have shared between us the English millions."
With his habitual airy gesture, Louis now intimated that the audience was at an end. He was obviously more highly elated than he cared to show before Gaston, and was longing to talk over plans and projects for future pleasures and extravagances with the fair Marquise. Madame, who had the knack of conveying a great deal by a look, succeeded in intimating to Gaston that she would gladly have availed herself a little longer of his pleasant company, but that royal commands must prevail.
Gaston therefore rose and kissed each hand, as it was graciously extended to him.
"We are pleased with what you have done, Monsieur le Comte," said the King as M. de Stainville finally took his leave, "but tell me," he whispered slily, "did the unapproachable Lydie yield with the first kiss, or did she struggle much? . . . eh? . . . B-r-r . . . my dear Comte, are your lips not frozen by contact with such an icicle?"
"Nay, your Majesty! all icicles are bound to melt sooner or later!" said Gaston de Stainville with a smile which—had Lydie seen it—would have half killed her with shame.
And with that same smile of fatuity still lurking round his lips, he bowed himself out of the room.
CHAPTER XXII
PATERNAL ANXIETY
M. le Duc d'Aumont, Prime Minister of His Majesty King Louis XV of France, was exceedingly perturbed. He had just had two separate interviews, each of half an hour's duration, and he was now busy trying to dissociate what his daughter had told him in the first interview, from that which M. de Stainville had imparted to him in the second. And he was not succeeding.