De Malfort’s name had decided him. He followed his hostess through a crowd of lackeys, a splendour of wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned and flashed upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her complexion the peach in its ripest bloom, the orange sheen of her velvet mantua shining out against a background of purple damask curtains embroidered with gold.
The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. Warmth, opulence, hospitality, were all expressed in the brilliantly lighted room, where luxurious fauteuils, after the new French fashion, stood about, ready to receive her ladyship’s guests.
These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. Less than twenty men, and about a dozen women, were enough to add an air of living gaiety to the brilliancy of light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. He kissed her ladyship’s hand, looked about him, and recognised Fareham with open wonder.
“An Israelite in the house of Dagon!” he said, sotto voce, as he approached him. “What, Fareham, have you given your neck to the yoke? Do you yield to the charm which has subjugated such lighter natures as Villiers and Buckhurst?”
“It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of youth and innocence.”
“Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to discover that? We all worship innocence, were it but for its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or a yellow diamond above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you here! It is the most human thing I have known of you since you recovered of the contagion; for you have been a gloomier man from that time.”
“Be assured I am altogether human—at least upon the worser side of humanity.”
“How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, you should fight against that melancholic habit. Her ladyship is in the black sulks. We are in for a pleasant evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm at us to-morrow; call us sycophants and time-servers, swear she would hold no further commerce with any manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she is a magnificent termagant. If Cleopatra was half as handsome, I can forgive Antony for following her to ruin at Actium.”
“There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen,” said Lady Castlemaine, who was standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of whispering women.
They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridiculing old Rowley, to gratify their hostess. She knew them by heart—their falsehood and hollowness. She knew that they were ready, every one of them, to steal her royal lover, had they but the chance of such a conquest; yet it solaced her soreness to hear Miss Stewart depreciated even by those false lips—“She was too tall.” “Her Britannia profile looked as if it was cut out of wood.” “She was bold, bad, designing.” “It was she who would have the King, not the King who would have her.”