Claude bit his lip and his eyes sparkled with anger.
"M. de Mailly, you do not eat."
"I have finished, Baron."
"Soho! I did well not to have a second course, then. Now, gentlemen, the toasts. M. de Mailly-Nesle, I propose your marquise."
"Not his wife, d'Holbach!"
"You mistake, Monsieur le Duc. I speak of Mme. de Coigny."
"Ah! With pleasure! She is a most piquant madcap."
Henri flushed. The lady whom he deeply and sincerely loved was a far tenderer subject with him than his reckless and heartless companions dreamed of or could have understood. But he drank the toast without comment, and was relieved to find that the conversation was straying from her as well as from his cousin's affair. Claude, perhaps, was not so well pleased. He was too young a lover, and too much in love, to rejoice that other women were being brought up for discussion; and he was too heedless of the delicacy of his position to care to contemplate its different aspects while the others talked. For, as to the matter of royal disfavor, it disturbed him not in the least; rather he looked upon the prospect of it as something which should redound to his credit in the eyes of her who at present constituted the single motive of his life. For the next twenty minutes, then, he sat over his wine, drinking all the toasts, and joining in the conversation when Mme. de Lauraguais, another sister of Henri's, was mentioned. But the interest had gone out of his eyes. Richelieu marked him silently; d'Holbach smiled with kindly humor on perceiving his preoccupation; and his cousin the Marquis read his mood with regret. Henri de Mailly-Nesle had long since given up any hope of control over his sister, the favorite; and, through a life-long companionship, Claude had been to him closer than a brother. Thus, whatever interest he felt in the latest developments of the Count's rash rivalry with the King, was all on behalf of the weaker side, that of his friend.
The six gentlemen had not been more than twenty minutes over their wine when de Gêvres finally rose from his chair, and, as host for the remainder of the night, made suggestion of departure.
"How shall we cross to my hôtel? It rains too heavily for riding. Shall we go by chair?"