Lydie knew enough of Court life to guess what would be said. Up to now she had been happily free from Louis's compromising flatteries, save at such times when he required money, but his attentions went no further—and they invariably ceased the moment he had obtained all that he wanted. But to-night he was unswerving in his adulation; and, in the brief pause between the second and third movement of the dance, he contrived to whisper in her ear:
"Ah, Madame! how you shame your King! Shall we ever be able to adequately express the full measure of our gratitude?"
"Gratitude, Sire?" she murmured, somewhat bewildered and rather coldly, "I do not understand . . . why gratitude?"
"You are modest, Madame, as well as brave and good," he rejoined, taking one more opportunity of raising her hand to his lips. He had succeeded in gradually leading her into a window embrasure, somewhat away from the rest of the dancers. He did not admire the statuesque grace of Lydie in the least, and had always secretly sneered at her, for her masculine strength of will and the rigidity of her principles, but it had been impossible for any man, alive to a sense of what was beautiful, not to delight in the exquisitely harmonious picture formed by that elegant woman, in her stiff, white brocaded gown and with her young head crowned by its wreath of ardent hair, standing out brilliantly against the pale, buttercup colour of the damask curtain behind her. There was nothing forced therefore in the look of admiration with which the King now regarded Lydie; conscious of this, she deeply resented the look, and perhaps because of it, she was not quite so fully alive to the hidden meaning of his words as she otherwise might have been.
"And as beautiful as you are brave," added Louis unctuously. "It is not every woman who would thus have had the courage of her convictions, and so openly borne witness to the trust and loyalty which she felt."
"Indeed, Sire," she said coldly and suddenly beginning to feel vaguely puzzled, "I am afraid your Majesty is labouring under the misapprehension, that I have recently done something to deserve special royal thanks, whereas——"
"Whereas you have only followed the dictates of your heart," he rejoined gallantly, seeing that she had paused as if in search of a word, "and shown to the sceptics in this ill-natured Court that, beneath the rigid mask of iron determination, this exquisitely beautiful personality hid the true instincts of adorable womanhood."
The musicians now struck the opening chords to the third and final measure of the pavane. There is something dreamy and almost sad in this movement of the stately dance, and this melancholy is specially accentuated in the composition of Rameau, which the players were rendering with consummate art to-night. The King's unctuous words were still ringing unpleasantly in Lydie's ears, when he put out his hand, claiming hers for the dance.
Mechanically she followed him, her feet treading the measure quite independently of her mind, which had gone wandering in the land of dreams. A vague sense of uneasiness crept slowly but surely into her heart, she pondered over Louis's words, not knowing what to make of them, yet somehow beginning to fear them, or rather to fear that she might after all succeed in understanding their full meaning. She could not dismiss the certitude from her mind that he was, in some hidden sense, referring to the Stuart prince and his cause, when he spoke of "convictions" and of her "courage"; but at first she only thought that he meant, in a vague way, to recall her interference of this morning, Lord Eglinton's outburst of contempt, and her own promise to give the matter serious consideration.
This in a measure re-assured her. The King's words had already become hazy in her memory, as she had not paid serious attention to them at the time, and she gradually forced those vague fears within her to subside, and even smiled at her own cowardice in scenting danger where none existed.