CHAPTER XXVII
A FALL
Irène de Stainville was quite right when she thought that sympathy would be on her side, in the grave affront which had been put upon her, and for which she had revenged herself somewhat drastically, but under the circumstances quite naturally.
Although in this circle—known as the Queen's set—the young Marchioness of Eglinton had always been looked up to as a leader and an especial favourite, the accusation which Irène had brought against her was so awful, her own attitude of passive acquiescence so incomprehensible, that it was small wonder that after the departure of Their Majesties, when the crowd broke up into isolated groups, most people there present held themselves aloof from her.
The words "a jealous woman's caprice," which at the outset had so angered the Queen, expressed fully the interpretation put upon Lydie's conduct by those who witnessed the scene from beginning to end. That Irène de Stainville had inflicted on her the humiliation of a terrible public indictment, was reckoned only as retributive human justice.
Lydie knew well enough that the crowd which surrounded her—though here usually composed of friends—was only too ready to believe evil, however crying, against a woman placed so highly in Royal and social favour as she herself had been for years. Already she could hear the murmur of condemnation round her, and that from people who should have known that she was quite incapable of committing the base treachery attributed to her.
Of course she had not denied it. She could not have denied it, in the face of the wording of the accusation itself.
And she felt herself hideously and morally guilty, guilty in the facts though not in the spirit. As Irène had put it crudely and simply, she had handed over to Gaston de Stainville in the privacy of the Park of Versailles the secret which would deliver the Stuart prince into the hands of his enemies.
How could she begin to explain to all these people that her motive had been good and pure, her orders to Gaston altogether different from those imputed to her by Irène? No one would have believed her explanation unless Gaston too spoke the truth. And Gaston meant to be an infamous liar to the end.
She had been the tool of that clique, it was they now who were ready to cast her aside, to break her power and ultimately to throw her on the heap of social refuse, where other traitors, liars and cheats mouldered away in obscurity.
Already she knew what the end would be, already she tasted the bitter fruit of waning popularity.