The two men turned back into the Galerie de Diane.
“I am sorry,” said Gilbert. “Never mind; we will go and pay our respects to Madame Gaumont to-morrow. Let me see: to-day is Monday, the 2nd; they start on Thursday.”
“Yes,” assented the Vicomte in a colourless tone. They were both walking slowly with their eyes on the floor.
“She ought to have gone long ago.”
“It would have been better.”
“However, it is no use regretting that. The past few months have altered her, Louis,” said the Marquis, in a burst of confidence very rare with him.
Saint-Ermay lifted his head and looked at his cousin, whose eyes were still downcast, with a gaze a little startled, and his lips tightened. All at once his eyes wavered, a swift change passed over his face, and he caught at Gilbert's arm.
“Hush,” he said in a low voice, “the Queen!”
She came down the long gallery, alone. One of the two men who watched her had last seen her, beautiful and shining, “enchantée de la vie,” the brilliant centre of a brilliant court. He was not then, nor ever had been, her admirer; rather was he her critic. But now, as she moved slowly down the empty gallery, the sweep of her dress more audible than the faint tap of her high heels on the polished floor, a thrill that was pain ran through him. Her eyes looked as if they saw nothing around her, out of a face changed and aged beyond all speech—sad, patient, aloof, serene, still proud, so proud indeed that it was clear nothing said or done now, whether by foe or friend, could touch the shrine of suffering of which it was the curtain. The once bright hair above it was grey, but more than ever it was the face of a Queen.
Nearer she came and nearer, and seemed not to notice the two men by the wall, taking them perhaps for a couple of curious sightseers, or for some of the guards whose presence she was obliged to tolerate even in her bedchamber. She might have passed them, if Louis de Saint-Ermay had not dropped on one knee, not with intent to stay her, but with bent head, as one kneels at the passage of the Host.