"Your own letter and the map, my child," he added with gentle reproach, thinking that she feared to trust him completely.
"Ah yes! my own letter!" she murmured, "the map . . . I had forgotten."
No! she did not mean to deny! She could not deny! . . . Her own father believed her guilty . . . and all she could have done would have been to urge the purity of her motive. Gaston had of course destroyed her orders to the command of Le Monarque and there was only the map . . . and that awful, awful letter.
Monsieur le Duc thought that his daughter had been very unwise. Having trusted Gaston, and placed herself as it were in his hands, she was foolish to anger him. No man—if he have the faintest pretension to being called an honourable gentleman—however smitten he might be with another woman's charms, will allow his wife to be publicly insulted by her rival. No doubt Lydie had been jealous of Irène, whose somewhat indiscreet advances to milor Eglinton had aroused universal comment. But Lydie did not even pretend to care for her own husband and she had yielded her most treasured secret to Gaston de Stainville. There she should have remained content and not have provoked Irène's wrath, and even perhaps a revulsion of feeling in Gaston himself.
Unlike King Louis, Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont did not approve of his daughter's name being associated with the treacherous scheme from which he was ready enough to profit financially himself, although in the innermost depths of his heart he disapproved of it. He knew his Royal master well enough to be fully aware of the fact that, when the whole nefarious transaction came to light, Louis would find means of posing before the public as the unwilling tool of a gang of money-grabbers. When that happened, every scornful finger would of necessity—remembering the events of this night—point at Lydie, and incidentally at her father, as the prime movers of the scheme.
It had been far better to have conciliated Irène and not to have angered Gaston.
But women were strange creatures, and jealousy their most autocratic master. Even his daughter whom he had thought so exceptional, so clever and so clear-headed, was not free from the weaknesses of her sex.
"Methinks, my dear," he said kindly, "you have not acted as wisely as I should have expected. Madame de Stainville, on my honour, hath not wronged you so as to deserve a public affront, and Gaston himself only desired to serve you."
Monsieur le Duc must have raised his voice more than he intended, or else perhaps there had occurred quite suddenly in the crowd of sympathizers, that now stood in a dense group round Madame de Stainville, one of those inevitable moments of complete silence when angels are said to be fluttering round the room. Certain it is that Monsieur le Duc's words sang out somewhat loudly, and were heard by those whose names had been on his lips.
"Nay! I entreat you, Monsieur le Duc," came in light, bantering accents from Gaston de Stainville, "do not chide your fair daughter. Believe me, we who have suffered most are not inclined to be severe. As to me the psychology of Madame la Marquise's mood has been profoundly interesting, since it hath revealed her to the astonished gaze of her many admirers, as endowed with some of the weaknesses of her adorable sex. Why should we complain of these charming weaknesses? For though we might be very hard hit thereby, they are but expressions of flattery soothing to our pride."