“Only with double panelling, my lady, and the woodwork has shrunk a little. I happened to notice it last night when I went in there in the dark to get a blanket, and Mistress Barbara’s candle was burning.”
The eyes of the two women met in the looking-glass. Mrs. Jael’s face gave forth a sunny, insinuating smile.
“It is not my nature, my lady, to spy and shuffle, but—”
“If you scraped a little of the wood away with a knife?”
“I don’t feel happy about Mistress Barbara, my lady. And if—”
“Be careful, Jael, you are pulling my hair.”
“A hundred pardons, my lady.”
“If you should see anything strange, it is well that I should know.”
IV
If the divine Hortense ruled his Majesty the King that year, her sway spread itself over the majority of those ambitious gentlemen who were in quest of “place” and plunder. When women exploited the state, and burst the bubble of a reputation with a kiss, politicians baited their interests with some new “beauty,” and pinned their petitions to the flounce of a petticoat.