The Queen deigned to say a few special words to this shy débutante and to her mother, both primly clad in badly-fitting gowns which proclaimed the country dressmaker, but in their simplicity and gaucherie peculiarly pleasing to Her Majesty.
And thus the procession filed past. Elderly women and young girls, some twenty in all, mostly hailing from distant parts of France, where the noise and frivolity of the Court of Versailles had not even roused an echo. The Queen was very gracious. She liked this select little circle of somewhat dowdy provincials, who she felt would be quite at one with her in her desire for the regeneration of social France. The uglier and less fashionable were the women, the more drabby and ill-fitting their clothes, the sweeter and more encouraging became Her Majesty's smile. She asked lengthy questions from her Grande Maréchale, and seemed to take a malicious delight in irritating the King, by protracting this ceremony, which she knew bored him to distraction, until he could scarcely manage to smother the yawns which continually assailed his jaws.
Suddenly Lydie felt her limbs stiffen and her throat close as if iron fingers had gripped it. She had been saying the usual platitudes anent the wife, sister or aunt of some worthy general or country squire, when Monsieur de Louvois called out a name:
"Madame la Comtesse de Stainville."
And from out the group of dowdy country matrons and starchy-looking dévotes a brilliant figure now detached itself and glided forward with consummate grace. Irène de Stainville was approaching for presentation to the Queen, her eyes becomingly cast down, a rosy flush on her cheeks, for she was conscious that she was beautiful and that the King's wearied eyes had lighted up at sight of her.
There was something almost insolent in the gorgeousness of her gown: it was of a rich turquoise blue, that stood out, glaring and vivid against the buttercup-coloured hangings of the room. Her stiff corslet was frankly décolleté, displaying her fine shoulders and creamy bosom, on which reposed a delicately wrought turquoise necklet of exquisite design. Her hair was piled up over her head, in the monumental and outré style lately decreed by Dame Fashion, and the brocade of her panniers stood out in stiff folds each side of her, like balloon-shaped supports, on which her white arms rested with graceful ease. It seemed as if a gaudy, exotic butterfly had lost its way, and accidentally fluttered into an assembly of moths.
Gaston de Stainville stood a little behind his wife. Etiquette demanded that he should be near her, when she made her obesiance to the Queen. He, too, somehow, looked out of place among these more sedate cavaliers: there had always been a very distinct difference between the dress worn by the ladies and gentlemen of the Queen's entourage, and the more ornate style adopted by the gayer frequenters of the Court of Versailles. This difference was specially noticeable now, when this handsome young couple stood before Her Majesty, she not unlike a glittering jewel herself, he in a satin coat of pale mauve, that recalled the delicate shades of a bank of candytuft in mid-June.
The Queen no longer looked down from her daïs with an indulgent, somewhat melancholy smile. Her eyes—cold and gray as those of King Stanislaus had been—regarded with distinct disapproval these two people, who, in her rigid judgment, were naught but gaudily decked-out dolls, and who walked on high-heeled shoes that made an unpleasant noise on the polished floor.
Lydie had during the last agonizing half-hour wholly forgotten Irène de Stainville and the presentation which, on an impulse of gratitude toward Gaston, she had promised to bring about, and she certainly had not been prepared for this meeting, face to face, with the man who, for the second time in her life, had so bitterly and cruelly wronged her.
Gaston did not seem anxious to avoid her gaze. There was insolent triumph and mockery in every line of his attitude: in the head thrown a little to one side; in the eyes narrowed until they were slits, gazing at her over the barrier of his wife's elaborate coiffure: in the slender, well-kept hand toying with the gold-rimmed eyeglass, and above all in the sensual, sneering mouth, and the full lips parted in a smile.