Yet even her most ardent admirers tell us that Irène de Stainville's vanity went almost beyond the bounds of reason in its avidity for fulsome adulation. Consciousness of her own beauty was not sufficient; she desired its acknowledgment from others. She seemed to feed on flattery, breathing it in with every pore of her delicate skin, drooping like a parched flower when full measure was denied to her. Many aver that she marred her undoubted gifts of wit through this insatiable desire for one sole topic of conversation—her own beauty and its due meed of praise. At the same time her love of direct and obsequious compliments was so ingenuous, and she herself so undeniably fascinating, that, in the hey-day of her youth and attractions, she had no difficulty in obtaining ready response to her wishes from the highly susceptible masculine element at the Court of Louis XV.
M. le Contrôleur-Général—whom she specially honoured with her smiles—had certainly no intention of shirking the pleasing duty attached to this distinction, and, though he was never counted a brilliant conversationalist, he never seemed at a loss for the exact word of praise which would tickle la belle Irène's ears most pleasantly.
And truly no man's heart could be sufficiently adamant to deny to that brilliantly-plumaged bird the tit-bits which it loved the best. Milor himself had all the sensitiveness of his race where charms—such as Irène freely displayed before him—were concerned, and when her smiling lips demanded acknowledgment of her beauty from him he was ready enough to give it.
"Let them settle the grave affairs of State over there," she had said to him this morning, when first she made her curtsey before him. And with a provocative smile she pointed to the serious-looking group of grave gentlemen that surrounded his bedside, and also to the compact row of backs which stood in serried ranks round Mme. la Marquise d'Eglinton in the embrasure of the central window. "Life is too short for such insignificant trifles."
"We only seem to last long enough to make love thoroughly to half a dozen pretty women in a lifetime," replied M. le Contrôleur, as he gallantly raised her fingers to his lips.
"Half a dozen!" she retorted, with a pout. "Ah, milor, I see that your countrymen are not maligned! The English have such a reputation for perfidy!"
"But I have become so entirely French!" he protested. "England would scarce know me now."
And with a whimsical gesture he pointed to the satin hangings of his bed, the rich point lace coverlet, and to his own very elaborate and elegant robe de chambre.
"Is that said in regret?" she asked.
"Nay," he replied, "there is no more place for regret than there is for boredom in sight of smiles from those perfect lips."