Lydie, alone among all those present, had retained her outward serenity. This was her hour, and she meant to press her triumph home to the full. All the pent-up horror and loathing which had well-nigh choked her during the whole of this terrible day, now rose clamouring and persistent in this opportunity for revenge. Though Gaston stood calm and mocking by, though Irène looked defiant and her cheeks flamed with wrath, they would glow with shame anon, for Lydie had deliberately aimed a blow at her vanity, the great and vulnerable spot in the armour of la belle brune de Bordeaux.
Lydie knew Marie Leszcynska well enough to be sure that the very breath of scandal, which she had deliberately blown on Gaston's wife, was enough to cause the rigid, puritanically-minded Queen to refuse all future intercourse with her. Rightly or wrongly, without further judgment or appeal, the Queen would condemn Irène unheard, and ban her and her husband for ever from her intimacy, thus setting the mark of a certain social ostracism upon them, which they could never live down.
Less than three seconds had elapsed whilst these conflicting emotions assailed the various actors of this drawing-room drama. The Queen now turned with a frown half-inquiring, wholly disapproving toward the unfortunate Louvois.
"Monsieur le Chambellan," she said sternly, "how did this occur? We do not allow any error to creep in the list of presentations made to our Royal person."
These few words recalled Irène to the imminence of her peril. She would not allow herself to be humiliated without a protest, nor would she so readily fall a victim to Lydie's obvious desire for revenge. She too was shrewd enough to know that the Queen would never forgive, and certainly never forget, the esclandre of this presentation; but if she herself was destined to fall socially, at least she would drag her enemy down with her, and bury Lydie's influence, power and popularity beneath the ruins of her own ambitions.
"Your Majesty will deign I hope to pause a moment ere you sweep me from before your Royal eyes unheard," she said boldly; "the error is on the part of Madame la Grande Maréchale. My name was put on Monsieur le Chambellan's list by her orders."
But Marie Leszcynska would not at this juncture take any direct notice of Irène; until it was made quite clear that Madame la Comtesse de Stainville was a fit and proper person to be presented to the Queen of France, she absolutely ignored her very existence, lest a word from her be interpreted as implying encouragement, or at least recognition. Therefore she looked beyond Irène, straight at Monsieur de Louvois, and addressed herself directly to him.
"What are the true facts, Monsieur le Chambellan?" she said.
"I certainly . . . er . . . had the list as usual . . . er . . . from Madame la Grande Maréchale . . . and . . ." poor Monsieur de Louvois stammered in a fit of acute nervousness.
"Then 'tis from you, Madame la Marquise, that we require an explanation for this unseemly disturbance," rejoined Her Majesty turning her cold, gray eyes on Lydie.