"Perhaps," murmured the Marquise de Châtelet, sweetly, "she is to form part of his Majesty's escort."
Silence followed this remark. Mme. de Rohan glared with displeasure at her companion, and the Marquise flushed a little beneath her rouge. It was too much, for once. Mme. de Mailly-Nesle, with commendable haste, turned to her near neighbor and reinstated the tête-à-têtes.
"Ah!" murmured Mme. de Coigny to Deborah, "these dames d'étiquette are insufferable. They should be stricken with a plague!"
Deborah smiled very faintly, and could make no reply. One of her hands was tightly clenched. Otherwise she appeared unconcerned enough.
At this moment M. de Bernis, having decided the new Countess to be rather presentable at a distance, drew nearer, with intent to converse with her. The abbé was, to-day, in his clerical dress, and thus Deborah acknowledged Mme. de Coigny's introduction with great gravity. When Victorine presently turned aside to Coyer, de Bernis began his conversation:
"Come to the window, here, madame, and look at the crowd upon the quay. In your country I dare swear you have no such canaille."
"Poor things! How dirty and ragged they look in all the light," murmured Deborah, in English.
"You should one day drive through the Faubourg where they live; it would interest you," returned the abbé, in the same tongue.
Deborah looked at him with a quick smile. "English sounds very dear to me. Thank you vastly for speaking it."
"One would learn Sanscrit to gain a word of praise from your lips, madame," was the abbé's unnecessary reply, whispered, not spoken.