The gentle voice cut like a whip. André began to pace up and down.
“You are young, my friend.” She was looking at him as she had looked when she slipped the pillow beneath his head at Fontenoy. “You are brave, a soldier with great ambitions and a great future, for you have the heart and courage of your race. You are of the noblesse, your world is not of this salon, but of the Salon de la Paix. Your friends, your blood, have declared war upon me; for a traitor to their cause they will have no mercy. True the King has commanded your services in my household, but Antoinette d’Étiolles, who is grateful for what you did at Fontenoy, refuses to accept because she would not ruin, I cannot say a friend, but a noble hero of France.”
Remorse, ambition, the witchery of her beauty, his love for Denise, strove for mastery within him.
“Adieu,” she whispered, “you must go your way, I mine. We shall meet, perhaps. How long I shall be here God knows. But trust me, I will see that your refusal to accept the King’s pleasure shall do you no harm. You will succeed, you must, for fortune, birth, and manhood are on your side. Adieu!”
“But, Madame—” he cried impulsively.
“No, Vicomte, no. It is impossible. A man may sacrifice himself, but never—never must he sacrifice his love.”
Her eyes rested on him with sympathetic significance. She had divined his secret. André felt the blood scarlet as his uniform in his cheeks. Denise—yes, Denise blocked the way to the future this enchantress had dreamed for him, nay, that he had dreamed for himself.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said slowly, raising her hand to his lips. “But André de Nérac is not ungrateful.”
“Perhaps,” she smiled. “Take your Cordon Bleu. It is none the less deserved because it was asked for by a vivandière. Will Monsieur le Vicomte permit? Yes?” she had pinned it to his breast. Her face was very close to his; the flattery in those wonderful eyes caressed his inmost soul. “See,” she whispered.
“This way—it is safer for you.”