“What is it, Chevalier?” she asked quickly.
The man peered into her face apparently as startled as she was. “It is not the Chevalier unfortunately,” André said with icy slowness, “but I am obliged for the information, Marquise.”
“Ah!” It was an exquisitely cruel moment. Flight on her part was impossible. “Ah, you came to spy,” she burst out, beside herself.
“Why deny it?” was the cool answer. “You would not believe me. So it was the Chevalier de St. Amant who avoided me so successfully in the dark just now. Happy Chevalier.”
“I will, I can explain,” she began incoherently.
“Pardon,” he interrupted. “The conduct of Mademoiselle la Marquise de Beau Séjour is no affair of mine. I regret, however, that as I have intruded on you I cannot offer you my escort, for it is neither in my interest nor in yours, Mademoiselle, that you and I should run the risk of being seen here by the Chevalier de St. Amant or by any one else who talks of secrets to all his friends. With your permission, therefore, I will leave you.”
Denise dropped into her seat with a sob. That André of all men should discover her here was anguish. Nor was it only that his discovery might mean the frustration of the schemes that were being so carefully planned; it was the cruel humiliation of herself against which all the womanhood in her cried out. If he had reproached her, accused her, denounced her, insulted her! No; he had only been cold as one who was indifferent or was ready to believe any evil.
Yet André was as unhappy as she, could she have but known it. Purely by accident on his return from Paris had he stumbled on Denise in the dark, and torturing thoughts made him feel bitter and then reckless. Denise, his Denise! Surely there was nothing to live for now. Love was a mockery and a sham. Women were all alike, faithless, vain, frivolous, worthless. He would do the Pompadour’s work without a twinge of conscience now, he would take what life had to offer of pleasure and revenge. Yes; he would revenge himself to the full on this perjured, intriguing, and immoral Court, and then he would go to die in the Low Countries.
Meanwhile Denise had returned safely to the Queen’s apartments and after supper sat alone in her misery in the room which opened off the hall of the Queen’s Guards. The curtains were drawn, but the door was ajar and she could hear a group of young nobles chattering as they played cards. Scattered remarks broke in on her bitter self-reproaches. Women’s names, some of them her friends, some of them dancers at the opera, were being freely bandied about. It was intolerable, vile, and her cheek burned to think that it was with these men that the priests and the ministers and herself were working to overthrow the Pompadour. She rose to close the door and shut out the scandalous babble, when a remark stammered out by the Comte des Forges sent a shiver through her.
“I t-tell you it is quite t-true,” he was saying. “Mont Rouge has l-learned that she m-met the Chevalier by the F-fountain of Neptune this very evening.”