The House of de Mailly

by Margaret Horton Potter

"Very well. Gaillard, is madame visible?"

The porter coughed. "Madame la Marquise was at Mme. de Tencin's till late. Madame, I think, is not visible."

Mailly-Nesle shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded to the staircase. As the servant followed with a candelabrum he made a curious, soft noise in his throat. Forthwith a footman glided swiftly into the hall from an antechamber, and took the other's place beside the door as if waiting for some one. Both nobles saw it. Neither spoke.

Five minutes later Claude was alone in his room. Henri had left him for the night, and he refused the services of a lackey in lieu of his own valet, who was at Versailles. The servant had lighted his candles, and a wood-fire burned in the grate. His wet coat had been carried away to dry. His hat, surtout, and gloves lay upon a neighboring chair. Amid the lace of his jabot glittered the jewelled star which, two hours ago, had flashed upon the breast of the King of France. Claude seated himself, absently, in a chair beside the cheerily crackling fire, facing a great picture that hung upon the brocaded wall. It was Boucher's portrait of Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, Marquise de la Tournelle, Duchesse de Châteauroux. She looked down upon him now in that calmly superb manner which she had used only this morning; the manner that the Court had raved over, that women vainly strove to imitate, that had conquered the indifference of a king. And as Claude de Mailly gazed, his own air, shamed perhaps by that of the woman, fell from him, as a sheet might fall from a statue. In one instant he was a different thing. He had become an individual; a man with a strong mentality of his own. The courtier's mask of imperturbable cynicism, the conventional domino of forced interest, the detestable undergarments of necessary toadyism, all were gone. Not the patch on his face, not the height of his heels, not the whiteness of his hands nor the breadth of his cuffs could make him now. Perhaps she whose painted likeness was before him would no more have cared to know him as he really was than she would have liked the words that he uttered, dreamily, before her picture. But it was the true Claude, Claude the man, nevertheless, who repeated aloud the thought in his heart:

"Our times are not made for the women we love."

CHAPTER II
The Toilet

Dawn, the late dawn of a gray, wintry morning, hung over Versailles. Within the palace walls those vast corridors, which had lately rung to sounds of life and laughter, stretched endlessly out in the ghostly chill of the vague light. Chill and stillness had crept also under many doors; and they breathed over that stately room in which Marie Anne de Châteauroux was accustomed to take the few hours of relief from feverish life granted her by kindly sleep.

Though the favorite's apartment was as dark as drawn curtains could make it, nevertheless a thin gleam of gray shot relentlessly between hanging and wall, and, falling athwart the canopied bed, announced that madame's temporary rest approached its end. Against this decree, however, madame's attitude would seem to rebel. She lay, apparently in profound sleep, in the very centre of the great bed, sheets and cover drawn closely about her, up to her throat. Only one hand, half hidden in lace, and her head, with its framing mass of yellow, powder-dulled hair, were visible. In her waking life that head of the Duchess of Châteauroux was celebrated for its marvellous poise. And even now, as it lay relaxed upon the pillow, the effect of its daytime majesty was not quite lost. Viewed thus, devoid of animation or expression, the pure, classic beauty of the face showed to better advantage, perhaps, than at another time. Already, however, ennui, and the constant effort at appearance of pleasure, had left their marks upon the regular features; and, indeed, much other than mere beauty might be found in the countenance. If there were power in the breadth of the forehead, there was too much determination in the chin; while at each corner of the delicate mouth a faint line gave a cast of resolution, dogged and relentless, to the feminine ensemble.

Presently, as the shadows melted more and more, the woman's silken-lashed eyes fell open, and the first of her waking thoughts was expressed in a long, melancholy sigh.