What she would have said, what answered, he could not know. At that moment there came forth from the inner court a troop of the mounted gendarmerie, followed by an enormous carriage, three times the size of that in which sat Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, covered with gilding. It was the carriage of Louis Quatorze, who was about to proceed to Marly for the night. Naturally, therefore, the vehicle in which Aurélie sat was forced to go forward; naturally, also, St. Georges had to back his horse to the side of the huge gateway, since no obstruction was allowed to impede the gracious sovereign's progress. With a bow they parted, therefore, she giving him one glance that might mean that later on they would meet again, while her carriage proceeded as fast as was possible in the direction of the already fashionable quarter of St.-Germain.
And he, drawing aside, witnessed the passage of Louis ere he himself proceeded to present himself to Louvois. He saw the king with his great carriage full of ladies, saw the table inside it covered with sweetmeats and fruit, saw the greatest monarch in Europe lolling back alone on one seat, a dog upon his knees. And, as he bowed low before his master, it seemed to him almost as if the king had distinguished him from among the heterogeneous mass of people who thronged the filthy footpath, and had looked at him an instant as though either gazing on a familiar face or wondering where he had seen one like it before.
Chapter XV.
The Minister of War.
"You come a little late, Monsieur St. Georges," the harsh, raucous, and underbred voice of Louvois said—"a little late. Too late by far for an officer selected by his Majesty for special service."
He turned his back upon his visitor as he spoke, changing the position he had assumed in front of the great fireplace in the room set apart as his cabinet in the Louvre, and seemed now only intent on watching the logs burning in the grate, and of dismissing—or insulting—the chevau-léger.
"Perhaps when M. de Louvois has heard my explanation of the reason why I am late, have tarried on my road, he may be disposed to overlook my dilitoriness," St. Georges replied, regarding the back of the roturier minister as he spoke; and the well-bred tones in which he uttered the words caused Louvois to turn around and face him again.
They made a strange contrast as they stood there. Both men were more than ordinarily tall, yet both carried their height differently. Louvois's was decreased in appearance by the heaviness of his shoulders, his head being deep set between them. St. Georges was as erect as a dart; while, as he faced the man whom, by some innate perception, he regarded as an enemy—or, at least, not a friend—his head was thrown back, so that his height and uprightness seemed somehow increased. Moreover, the whole appearance of each was in extreme contrast, and that not a contrast in favour of the minister. The stained military jacket of the soldier, the long, brown leather boots, the large cavalry spurs, the great bowl-hilted sword, all gave him an appearance of advantage over the sombre, velvet-clad Louvois; the long, curling hair falling on his shoulders in a thick mass was more becoming than the wig à trois marteaux which Louvois wore outside state functions. And for the rest, the pale yet weather-exposed face of the one, with its long, deep, chestnut mustache, caused the cadaverous and coarse-cut features of the other—the thick, bulbous nose and full, sensual lips—to appear insignificant, if not ignoble.
Louvois had kept him waiting three hours in the anteroom—a thing which, however, he would have done in any case and to any one seeking an interview with him, excepting only some scion of royalty, legitimate or illegitimate, one of the king's marshals, or a relative of one of the king's mistresses—for he understood as well as any vulgar, important parvenu of to-day, or thought he understood, the value of administering such snubs. And, now that the visitor was admitted, his manner was as insulting and as would-be humiliating as he knew how to fashion it. Moreover, with another trait of vulgarity as common in those days as these, he had bidden him to no seat.