"M. le Vicomte, if you have the honor of a noble, the heart of a man, you fight me to-night. I seek no shelter under my cloth!"
Saint-Elix turned as he heard the words, laughed scornfully, and signed the speaker away with an insolent sneer:
"Bah! Révérend Père! we do not fight with women and churchmen!"
The fête was ended at last, the lights that had gleamed among the limes and chestnuts had died out, the gardens and salons were emptied and silent, the little Cupid had laid aside his weighty jewelled wings, the carriages with their gorgeous liveries, their outriders, and their guards of honor, had rolled from the gates of Petite Forêt to the Palace of Versailles. Madame la Marquise stood alone once more in the balcony of her salons, leaning her white arms on its gilded balustrade, looking down on to the gardens beneath, silvered with the breaking light of the dawn, smiling, her white teeth gleaming between her parted rose-hued lips, and thinking—of what? Who shall say?
Still, still as death lay the gardens below, that an hour ago had been peopled with a glittering crowd, re-echoing with music, laughter, witty response, words of intrigue. Where the lights had shone on diamonds and pearl-broidered trains, on softly rouged cheeks, and gold-laced coats, on jewelled swords and broideries of gold, the gray hue of the breaking day now only fell on the silvered leaves of the limes, the turf wet with dew, he drooped heads of the Provence roses; and Madame la Marquise, standing alone, started as a step through the salon within broke the silence.
"Madame, will you permit me a word now?"
Gaston de Launay took her hands off the balustrade, and held them tight in his, while his voice sounded, even in his own ears, strangely calm, yet strangely harsh:
"Madame, you love me no longer?"
"Monsieur, I do not answer questions put to me in such a manner."
She would have drawn her hands away, but he held them in a fierce grasp till her rings cut his skin, as they had done once before.