At Saint-Ermay’s name the smile left Madame de Château-Foix’ lips, and a certain tightness came about them. “Oh, Louis . . .” she murmured, and took her embroidery and a skein of silk off the table. “Well?” she asked, bending her head and selecting a needle from her case.
“I am going to Paris to see him,” announced her son succinctly.
There was a moment’s pause, ere Madame de Château-Foix slowly raised her head. “You do not really mean that, surely?”
“Yes. Why not?”
The Marquise made a gesture with her still beautiful hands. “What sort of a scrape is in this time?” she demanded. “Debts, or a woman?”
“Neither,” said Gilbert. And, leaning against the stone balustrade, he gave her an outline of the situation, omitting all reference to Madame d’Espaze. At the end she took the embroidery and put it back on the table. Her colour was perceptibly heightened.
“I have no patience with Louis—nor with you, for the matter of that,” she observed, and there was more than irritation in her voice. “But it has always been the same. Surely Louis is old enough to look after himself. Who made you his keeper?”
“You yourself,” returned the Marquis, and there was the glimmer of a smile on his face. “Exactly eighteen years ago last March it was. Have you forgotten?”
Madame de Château-Foix gave vent to a monosyllable that sounded like “Pshaw!”
“My dear mother, you make yourself out a perfect Gorgon of hard-heartedness. Who would be the first to fly to Louis’ bedside if he were ill? Why, you, of course!”