Later on in the afternoon when an excellently cooked dinner had softened his mood, he tried to put together the various pieces of the mental puzzle which confronted him.
Gaston de Stainville had obtained a certain ascendancy over Lydie, and Lydie had irretrievably quarrelled with her husband. Milor was determined to quit Versailles immediately; Lydie was equally bent on not relinquishing her position yet. Gaston de Stainville was obviously triumphant and somewhat openly bragged of his success, whilst milor kept to his own private apartments, and steadily forbade his door to every one.
It was indeed a very difficult problem for an indulgent father to solve. Fortunately for his own peace of mind, M. le Duc d'Aumont was not only indulgent to his own daughter whom he adored, but also to every one of her sex. He was above all a preux chevalier, who held that women were beings of exceptional temperament, not to be judged by the same standards as the coarser fibred male creatures; their beauty, their charm, the pleasure they afforded to the rest of mankind, placed them above criticism or even comment.
And of course Lydie was very beautiful . . . and milor a fool . . . and . . . Gaston. . . . Well! who could blame Gaston?
And it was most amazingly lucky that Lydie had given up her absurd ideas about that Stuart prince, and had thus helped those English millions to find their way comfortably across the Channel, into the pockets of His Majesty the King of France, and of one or two others, including her own doting father.
And after that M. le Duc d'Aumont gave up worrying any more about the matter.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE QUEEN'S SOIRÉE
What chronicler of true events will ever attempt to explain exactly how rumour succeeds in breaking through every bond with which privacy would desire to fetter her, and having obtained a perch on the swiftest of all currents of air, travels through infinite space, and anon, observing a glaringly public spot wherein to alight, she descends with amazing rapidity and mingles with the crowd.
Thus with the news anent milor Eglinton's resignation of the General Control of Finance.