"Why not, my child? I have been there thrice for less; and the last time, had it not been for my ever-honored Duchess of Modena—umph! I had been carried out shorter by a head than when I went in!"
The five gentlemen smiled broadly at certain memories still occasionally recalled on a rainy day at Versailles. But Henri, Claude's cousin, looked anxious. "What is your last exploit, Claude? Marie has been inciting you to rashness again?"
Claude laughed. "Madame did not honor me by a single command. I rode a course, I shot a stag, and I won—this, which was intended for a king, not me."
Forthwith the young fellow drew from beneath his waistcoat something which even de Gêvres leaned forward to see. It was a glove, a white gauntlet, weighted on the back with a crest heavily embroidered in gold, and set here and there with tiny sapphires of the color lately known as œil du Roi; while upon the smooth leather palm was painted a very good miniature of his gracious Majesty, Louis XV.
The little group of courtiers glanced from the trophy to the face of its owner, who was gazing upon them with a smile not wholly unconscious, but wisely tempered with cynicism. Presently the Baron reached forward and took the costly article from Claude. Holding it with a delicate touch in the light of a waxen candle, he smiled as he observed:
"Madame should not have removed this ere she gave it to you, my dear Count."
"I would to God she had not!" cried de Mailly-Nesle.
Four pairs of brows went gently up, but Claude's eyes met those of his cousin with such an expression of affection and melancholy that for an instant he seemed to be transformed to some other order of man.
The slight pause was broken by the entrance of the first course proper of the supper. The Count took back his gage and thrust it again to the conventional resting-place over his heart; and while the innumerable dishes were being placed upon the table or passed about, he returned the patch-box to his pocket and seated himself between his cousin and Richelieu.
"Now that Claude has given you his meagre idea of the crisis through which he passed to-day," remarked Claude's companion, helping himself to a fillet of partridge, "permit me to advance to him my own opinion of the affair, as well as to lay the tale before you all. His coming fate shall be surmised by you. Now hark: His Majesty and a little suite rode to Rambouillet yesterday, in the afternoon. The hunters were to follow this morning; but they say that de Rosset never permits the King to rise earlier than eight o'clock, so that he is fain to be near the forest on the day of the chase. I was with him; but, for some royal reason, Madame la Duchesse, despite some very eloquent pleading on my part, had refused to go. Possibly Mme. de Toulouse is of family too scrupulous to receive her."* The Dukes and d'Holbach smiled. "Claude, however, was of the royal train, for, mark you, gentlemen, Louis adores the Count at twenty miles distance from madame his cousin. Well, then, at ten this morning the meet was called at the edge of the forest. His Majesty was in a frenzy of eagerness, and looked—did he not look like a little god, my dear Count? Hein? But for the point. The first deer had not yet been started by the keepers when a diversion occurred. His Majesty was talking with the head man. There was a murmur behind us. I turned about, and saw—"