Her note finally despatched by the only man in her household whom she could trust, she drank a second cup of chocolate and ate a fillet of venison, of royal shooting, with some appetite. Afterwards, with the assistance of Antoinette, she made one of her most careful négligé toilets, in which the carelessness was obviously becoming. Her dress was entirely of white. She wore not a single jewel, wiped off every trace of rouge, took the ornaments from her hair, and brushed its powdery locks till the bright gold lay in natural waves about her neck, and Mme. de Châteauroux had become as beautiful as flattery itself could have painted her. She was, at this time, nearly seven and twenty years of age. Her face was still young, but her manner was old—older than that of the King. She had acquired long ago the carriage of a King's consort, and that was, indeed, a role which she had played so much that it had become a natural part of herself. She had faced difficult situations since her childhood; and never, save once with her dead father and once with her husband, the old Marquis de la Tournelle, had she lost control of herself and of the affair in hand. It had made her too self-confident in appearance—a fact which she realized, but could not change. She would have liked to-day to play a younger part with Claude, but she sighed and shook her head as Antoinette finally tied back the shining hair with a white ribbon, and the grand manner descended upon her like a pall.
It was now a full half-hour since she had sat in the little room, waiting, and looking out upon the bleak courtyard below her window. She had ceased to think, and her appearance was that of a statue in marble, when Antoinette softly pushed open the door of her room and allowed a cloaked and hatted figure to pass in. The door closed again after the entrance, and at the same time there was a little click from the antechamber beyond, as the faithful maid locked the door that opened upon the great corridor. In the boudoir of the favorite two people were alone.
With a slight movement of the shoulders Claude dropped his enveloping mantle upon a chair behind him, and threw his hat down upon it also. Then, impulsively, he turned towards his cousin, as though upon the spot he would have taken her in his arms and told her all that he had come to say. But there was something in her attitude that stopped him—something that even forced him back a pace from his advance. As a matter of fact the Duchess meant to be herself mistress of the scene, and, having no idea of Claude's ill advised intent, she seated herself quietly on a chair with her back to the drawn window-curtain, and, with a gesture peculiar to herself, bade him draw a tabouret to her knee. He went to her obediently, looking at her with repressed expectation in his white face. After an instant's hesitation she said, slowly:
"And so, my poor Claude, it is come to the end."
His reply was quick. "No, Anne. It is not the end yet."
"What! What are you saying? You are exiled, Claude."
"Ah, yes. The King told you that."
"It was not the King told me that. Do you mean that the story of the letter of banishment is not true?"
Claude was silent.
"Why do you say it is not the end?"