“I do not admit the suitability of the metaphor,” retorted Gilbert, controlling himself with difficulty. “I am asking for the life of a friend of your own, Madame. Surely my request is not a very strange one.”
“And what makes you think that M. de Saint-Ermay is a friend of mine?” she asked at that. “You abound in strange suppositions, Monsieur.”
“Because I know my cousin rather well, Madame,” answered the Marquis. “And since I have seen you——” he concluded, bowing.
“Merci, Monsieur!” cried the lady. “And because, as I am to understand, Monsieur le Vicomte has done me the honour to admire me, I am to feel that his blood is on my head?”
“If not responsibility, I should expect you to feel interest,” retorted Gilbert sternly. “But if you have no concern for the boy, I am only wasting your time and my own.” He made a movement as if to take his leave.
Madame d’Espaze put out her hand. “Stay a moment, M. de Château-Foix. I am not as insensible as you think to the fate of my friends. But you must see that I cannot afford to sacrifice my party to my personal friendships. You will say that politics is not a game for a woman—I am sure that is one of your ideas—but since I have taken it up I must play it. And these people are not friends; they only come here to pay me compliments, and I have had my fill of those for more years than I should care to acknowledge to you. Those are not the stakes for which I play now. . . . I wonder why I am saying these things to you. . . . You have come to the wrong person; it is nothing to me—not the snap of a finger—if all these young fools pay the penalty of their folly.” She was on her feet by now, walking rapidly about. “You have come to the wrong person,” she reiterated.
“Madame, I do not think I have,” said Gilbert quietly.
Suddenly she turned on him. “You credit me, I suppose, with being Louis’ mistress?”
“That is not a matter which concerns or interests me, Madame. I want my cousin’s life, not an account of the way in which he spends it.”
The Comtesse stopped in her restless walk as if struck by a sudden idea. “Then you do not know—you do not consider yourself his mentor?”