"Our gentlemen are somewhat late this evening," exclaimed Philippe. "'Tis too bad the Abbé Dubois could not be with us to-night to administer clerical consolation."
"Ah! le drôle Dubois!" exclaimed Madame de Tencin.
"And that vagabond, the Due de Richelieu—but we may not wait. Again ladies, the glasses, or Béchamel will be aggrieved. And finally, though I perceive most of you have graciously unmasked, let me say that the moment has now arrived when we make plain all secrets."
He turned his gaze upon the woman at his right. As though at a signal, she half rose, unclasped the circlet of gems at her throat, and swept back across the arm of her chair the soft garment which enveloped her.
A sigh, a long breath of amazement broke from those other dames of Paris. Not one of them but was sated with the blaze of diamonds, the rich, red light of rubies and the fathomless radiance of sapphires. Silks and satins and cloth of gold and silver had few novelties for them. The costumers of Paris, center of the world of art, even in those times of unrivaled extravagance and unbridled self-gratification, held no new surprise for these beauties, possessed so long of all that their imagination required or that princely liberality could supply. Yet here indeed was a surprise.
As she stood at the regent's right, calmly and composedly looking down the long board as she arranged her drapery before reseating herself, this new favorite of the regent appeared in the full costume of the American native! A long soft tunic of exquisitely dressed white leather fell below her hips, intricately embroidered in the native bead work of America, and stained with great blotches of colors done in the quills of the porcupine—heavy reds, sprightly yellows, and deep blues. Down the seams of this loose-fitting tunic depended little waving fringes. The belt which caught it at the waist was wrought likewise in beads. Beneath the level of the table, as she stood, the inquiring eyes might not so clearly see; yet the white leggings, fringed and beaded, and covered by a sweeping blanket of snowy buckskin, might have been seen to finish at the ankle and blend in texture and ornamentation with tiny shoes, which covered the smallest foot yet seen in Paris—shoes at the side of which there dangled the little bells of metal whose tones had told her coming.
Here and there upon the bead work of the native artist, who had made this attire at the expense of so much patient effort, there blazed the changing rays of real gems, diamonds, rubies, emeralds—every stone known as precious. As the full bosom of the scornful beauty rose and fell there were cast about in sprays of light the reflections of these gems. Bracelets of dull, beaten metal hung about her wrists. In her hair were ornaments of some dull blue stone. Barbaric, beautiful, fascinating, savage she surely seemed as she met unruffled the startled gaze of these beautiful women of the court, who never, at even the most fanciful bal masque in all Paris, had seen costume like to this.
"Ladies, la voilà!" spoke the regent. "Ma belle sauvage!"
The newcomer swept a careless courtesy as she took her seat. As yet she had spoken no word. The door at the lower end of the hall opened.
"His Grace le Duc de Richelieu," announced the attendant, who stood beneath the board.