"Look at the de Mailly!" whispered Mme. de Gontaut to Victorine de Coigny. "His Majesty's arrival will be different now."
"You belie her. Mme. de Mailly is not in love with the King," returned the little Maréchale, quietly.
The Gontaut did not reply. She had no more time to waste upon Deborah, who had ceased to be observed in the general tumult. The chorus of exclamations fell now to a series of whispers, for la Châteauroux was in the house. How to receive her? After so many months of utter disgrace was she at once, without protest, to step, with all her old, disdainful insolence, into the second seat at Versailles? Certainly it must have been at royal bidding that she came here. The hopeless daring of the otherwise was not conceivable. Nevertheless, this was a shock difficult to recover from. The whispers, which, during the anticipation, had almost ceased, began to run again round the room.
"The Duchess is long enough in removing her wraps."
"She is disconcerted to find herself before the King."
"Nevertheless—soon or late—she must face us."
"Ah, if we but dared—all of us—to refuse recognition!"
"It is impossible. Besides—the King would banish the whole Court."
"Here she is."
At last, amid a perfect stillness, Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle re-entered that Choisy room which she had seen last nine months before. Then, her exit had been the signal for the cessation of pleasure. Her rule was unthreatened, absolute. Now, as she came in—silence. She passed slowly across the room, glancing now and then, to the right and left, at the frozen groups of women who, a year ago, would have risked the ruin of their costliest garments for the sake of the first word with her. Yet now, still, silence.