“Soit!” André was saying to himself as his spurs rang in the empty corridor, “c’est la guerre! Soit!” The die was cast. Madame de Pompadour was his only friend now. Henceforward the Court, his friends, his class, the women whom he had loved, would be his bitterest foes. And it was to that one friend that he now turned. Yet, careful as he was, he was unaware that the Comtesse had followed him stealthily, had marked his entry by the secret door, and returned to the Duke of Pontchartrain with the news.
Madame de Pompadour was alone. “You have something to say?” she questioned eagerly.
André related what had just passed and Madame laughed. “Ah, my friend,” she remarked gaily, “it will need more than a petition to-day.” She flung herself back into her chair, her wonderful eyes ablaze with a magnificently carnal consciousness of victorious beauty and power. “And the Vicomte de Nérac cannot go back now,” she added with a sudden gravity. “The priests, the nobles, the officers might forgive you, but a woman, a comtesse, will neither forget nor forgive, never, never!”
“Yes, Madame,” André said, “I am in your hands.”
Madame de Pompadour moved swiftly towards him. “And I in yours,” she whispered.
The perfect music of her voice, the grace of her figure, the flash in her eyes, were irresistible. Compared with this radiant, triumphant goddess of a royal love, even Gabrielle des Forges seemed a bloodless, heartless puppet.
“I have more to say,” André proceeded, “I verily believe I am on the track of ‘No. 101.’” She turned sharply, her breath came quickly. “Yvonne,” she added, “Yvonne is proving very useful. I have learned from her that the English have a spy, an agent in Paris, that he frequents ‘The Cock with the Spurs of Gold,’ that he has a paid servant at the palace. Before long I mean to have that spy in fetters, and then——” he laughed.
“Good—good!” Madame clapped her hands. “It is only what I suspected. And the wench, Yvonne, is she in it?”
“She is a simple girl, Madame, and I cannot say yet. But in another week I shall know more.”
“Do not be in a hurry. It is pleasant cajoling the truth from a wench, n’est-ce pas? We must act with extreme caution, it is a matter of life and death for you and me. I, too, have not been idle. Listen. The King’s secret is mine.”