‘Are you following the example of our friend of the Faubourg St-Germain, may I inquire?’ asked Madame Cornuel, with a little smile, pointing to the flowers, at which her step-daughter laughed, and the tall red-haired lady made a moue and answered with a deep sigh:—
‘Ah! the wit of the Marais!’ The meaning of this esoteric persiflage was entirely lost on Madeleine, and she sat with an absolutely expressionless face, trying to hide her own embarrassment.
‘Ah! pardon me, I had forgotten,’ Madame Cornuel exclaimed. ‘Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, allow me to present to you Mademoiselle Troqueville.’ (It may have been Madeleine’s imagination, but it seemed to her that Madame Cornuel paused before calling her Mademoiselle.) Mademoiselle de Rambouillet screwed up her eyes at her and smiled quite pleasantly, while Madeleine, absolutely tongue-tied, tried to perform the almost impossible task of curtseying in a coach. They got out, and went inside, the three others continuing their mystifying conversation.
They went up a staircase and through one large splendid room after another. So here was Madeleine, actually in the famous ‘Palais de Cléomire,’ as it was called in Cyrus, but the fact did not move her, indeed she did not even realise it. Once Mademoiselle de Rambouillet turned round and said to her:—
‘I fear ’tis a long journey, Mademoiselle,’ but the manner in which she screwed up her eyes both terrified and embarrassed her, so instead of answering she merely blushed and muttered something under her breath.
Finally they reached Madame de Rambouillet’s bedroom (she had ceased for some years to receive in the Salle Bleue). She was lying on a bed in an alcove and there were several people in the ruelle; as the thick velvet curtains of the windows were drawn Madeleine got merely an impression of rich, rare objects glowing like jewels out of the semi-darkness, but in a flash she took in the appearance of Madame de Rambouillet. Her face was pale and her lips a bright crimson, which was obviously not their natural colour; she had large brown eyes with heavy pinkish eyelids, and the only sign that she was a day over fifty was a slight trembling of the head. She was wearing a loose gown of some soft gray material, and on her head were cornettes of exquisite lace trimmed with pale yellow ribbons. One of her hands was lying on the blue coverlet, it was so thin that its veins looked almost like the blue of the coverlet shining through. The fingers were piled up with beautiful rings.
There was a flutter round the bed, and then Madeleine found herself being presented to the Marquise.
‘Ah! Mademoiselle Toctin, I am ravished to make your acquaintance,’ she said in a wonderfully melodious voice, with a just perceptible Italian accent. ‘You come from delicious Marseilles, do you not? You will be able to recount to us strange Orient romances of orange-trees and Turkish soldiers. Angélique, bring Mademoiselle Touville a pliant, and place it close to me, and I will warm myself at her Southern historiettes.’
‘It is from Lyons that I come, not from Marseilles,’ was the only repartee of which at the moment Madeleine was capable. Her voice sounded strange and harsh, and she quite forgot a ‘Madame.’ However, the Marquise did not hear, as she had turned to another guest. But Angélique de Rambouillet heard, and so did another lady, with an olive complexion and remarkably bright eyes, whom Madeleine guessed to be Madame de Montausier, the famous ‘Princesse Julie.’ They exchanged glances of delight, and Madeleine began to blush, and blush, though, as a matter of fact, it was by their mother they were amused.
In the meantime a very tall, elderly man, with a hatchet face, came stumbling towards her.