“Yes. He made his escape from France in the disguise of a pedlar. I had the news only yesterday. Ah, there is Mademoiselle Fontrailles, with Mademoiselle Chon Dubarry and the Vicomte Jean. What did I tell you? Hand in glove, hand in glove. She looks well, the Fontrailles. Cold as an icicle, but beautiful. And they say she has a fortune of a million francs. Why, there is Madame Camus, she has come with Madame de Courcelles; and look at Camus, he seems to have no eyes but for his wife.”
Sartines gazed in the direction of a group consisting of Camus, his wife, Camille Fontrailles and Jean Dubarry. They were all laughing and talking, and now, apropos of some remark, Camus, with a little bow, took his wife’s hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. The others laughed at the joke, whatever it was.
“Look,” said de Sartines, “what a charming husband. And yet it seemed to me, for I have been watching them all since they came in, that this charming husband slipped a little note behind his back to the Fontrailles, and that she took it quite in the orthodox way—that is to say, without being seen.”
“Except by you.”
“Except by me, but then, you see, I am the Minister of Police, and I am supposed to see what other people do not see, and know what other people do not know.” De Sartines, as he finished speaking, turned again towards the group and contemplated them with a brooding eye, his hands behind his back, and his lips slightly thrust out.
“But she can have no hopes, since Madame Camus is alive and, despite her lameness, evidently in the best of health,” said M. de Duras.
“My dear fellow,” said de Sartines, “that is not a girl to build on hopes. If she cares for Camus, as I believe she does, he has only to wink and she will follow him. She is of that type. The type of the perverse prude. The creature who would refuse herself to an honest man, and yet is quite ready to roll in the gutter if the gutter pleases her. Here has this one refused a man whom she might have made something of—that is to say, Rochefort, and who has welcomed the advances of a speckled toad—that is to say, Camus. You say Camus is an open-hearted man, at least I fancy you made some curious remark of that sort; you are wrong, just as wrong as when you said Madame de Guemenée had quarrelled with Madame de Choiseul; just as wrong as when you said de Rochefort was in Germany. M. de Rochefort is in Paris—and there he is in the flesh.”
“Monsieur le Vicomte de Chartres. Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort,” came the usher’s voice.
An earthquake would not have shaken de Choiseul more than that announcement, and just as he would have remained unmoved after the first shock of the earthquake, so did he now after the first shock of the announcement.
Rochefort, accompanying Chartres, advanced a hair’s-breadth behind the Vicomte, and with that half-smiling, easy grace which was one of his attractions. He was beautifully dressed in a suit of Chartres’ which a tailor had been half a day altering to suit his fastidious tastes. He bowed to his hostess and host.