"I pray you forgive me, milor. I am loth to think that perhaps our gallant Chevalier will never bear his rightful title in his own country. I feel that it cheers him to hear us—who are in true sympathy with him—calling him by that name. Shall we go find the King of England and wish him 'God-speed'?"
She beckoned to Lord Eglinton, but he had probably not yet sufficiently recovered from the snub administered to him to realize that the encouraging glance was intended for him, and he hung back, not daring to follow, instinctively appealing to his mother for guidance as to what he should do.
"He is modest," said Lady Eglinton, with the air of a proud mother lauding her young offspring. "A heart of gold, my dear Mlle. d'Aumont!" she whispered behind her fan, "under a simple exterior."
Lydie shrugged her shoulders with impatience. She knew whither Lady Eglinton's praises of her son would drift presently. The pompous lady looked for all the world like a fussy hen, her stiff brocaded gown and voluminous paniers standing out in stiff folds each side of her portly figure like a pair of wings, and to Lydie d'Aumont's proud spirit it seemed more than humiliating for a man, rich, young, apparently in perfect health, to allow himself to be domineered over by so vapid a personality as was milady Eglinton.
Instinctively her thoughts flew back to Gaston; very different physically to "le petit Anglais;" undoubtedly not so attractive from the point of view of manly grace and bearing, but a man for all that! with a man's weaknesses and failings, and just that spice of devilry and uncertainty in him which was pleasing to a woman.
"So unreliable, my dear Mlle. d'Aumont," came in insinuating accents from Lady Eglinton. "Look at his lengthy entanglement with Mlle. de Saint Romans."
Lydie gave a start sudden; had she spoken her thoughts out loudly whilst her own mind was buried in happy retrospect? She must have been dreaming momentarily certainly, and must have been strangely absent-minded, for she was quite unconscious of having descended the alcove steps until she found herself walking between Lord Eglinton and his odious mother, in the direction of the corridors, whilst milady went prattling on with irritating monotony:
"You would find such support in my son. The Chevalier de Saint George—er—I mean the King of England—trusts him absolutely, you understand—they have been friends since boyhood. Harry would do more for him if he could, but he has not the power. Now as Comptroller of Finance—you understand? You have such sympathy with the Stuart pretensions, Mademoiselle, and a union of sympathies would do much towards furthering the success of so just a cause; and if my son—you understand——"
Lydie's ears were buzzing with the incessant chatter. Had she not been so absorbed in her thoughts she would have laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing. This insignificant nonentity beside her, with the strength and character of a chicken, pushed into a place of influence and power by that hen-like mother, and she—Lydie—lending a hand to this installation of a backboneless weakling to the highest position of France!
The situation would have been supremely ridiculous were it not for the element of pathos in it—the pathos of a young life which might have been so brilliant, so full of activity and interest, now tied to the apron-strings of an interfering mother.