"What say you, milady?" she added, turning to the florid, somewhat over-dressed woman who stood by her side. "Shall we listen to the excuses M. de Stainville seems anxious to make; meseems they are clad in white satin and show a remarkably well-turned ankle."
But before Lady Eglinton could frame a reply, Lydie d'Aumont had risen, and placing her hand on Stainville's shoulder, she thrust him gently aside and now stood smiling beside him, perfectly self-possessed, a trifle haughty, looking down on Jeanne de Pompadour's pert face and on the older lady's obviously ill-humoured countenance.
"Nay, Mme. la Marquise," she said, in her own quiet way, "M. le Comte de Stainville's only excuse for his neglect of courtly duties stands before you now."
"Ma foi, Mademoiselle!" retorted the Marquise somewhat testily. "His Majesty, being over-gallant, would perhaps be ready enough to accept it, and so, no doubt, would the guests of M. le Duc, your father—always excepting Mlle, de St. Romans," she added, with more than a point of malice, "and she is not like to prove indulgent."
But Lydie was far too proud, far too conscious also of her own worth, to heed the petty pinpricks which the ladies of the Court of Louis XV were wont to deal so lavishly to one another. She knew quite well that Gaston's name had oft been coupled with that of Mlle. de St. Romans—"la belle brune de Bordeaux," as she was universally called—daughter of the gallant Maréchal just home from Flanders. This gossip was part and parcel of that multifarious scandal to which she had just assured her lover that she no longer would lend an ear.
Therefore she met Mme. de Pompadour's malicious look with one of complete indifference, and ignoring the remark altogether, she said calmly, without the slightest tremor in her voice or hint of annoyance in her face:
"Did I understand you to say, Madame, that His Majesty was tired and desired to leave?"
The Marquise looked vexed, conscious of the snub; she threw a quick look of intelligence to Lady Eglinton, which Lydie no doubt would have caught had she not at that moment turned to her lover in order to give him a smile of assurance and trust.
He, however, seemed self-absorbed just now, equally intent in avoiding her loving glance and Mme. de Pompadour's mocking gaze.
"The King certainly asked for M. de Stainville a while ago," here interposed Lady Eglinton, "and M. le Chevalier de Saint George has begun to make his adieux."