“I am aware of that,” Madame de Pompadour said sweetly, “but I asked a favour, Mademoiselle; may I simply add that I hope if the Marquise de Beau Séjour should so far forget herself as ever to ask a favour of the Marquise de Pompadour she will not be so foolish or so uncharitable as to refer it to her gentleman-usher.”
The two women confronted each other in silence. Then Madame de Pompadour curtsied deferentially, stepped into her chair, and disappeared. Denise walked into the antechamber with two angry red spots in her pale cheeks and her grey eyes blazing.
“Mon Dieu!” cried the Comtesse des Forges. “It is insufferable. What insolence! My consolations, dear Mademoiselle.”
“There is something coming,” the Abbé de St. Victor said gravely. “The grisette’s speech was a trumpet of war. Before long there will be a new maid of honour—that’s what she——”
“A hundred l-livres to one,” stammered Des Forges, “that it is n-not this week.”
“I’ll take that,” said the Abbé, using the jewelled pencil the Duchess had given him. “I want a hundred livres sorely.”
“Here is the Duchess,” exclaimed Mademoiselle Claire.
“Well? the news—the news?” cried a dozen excited voices.
“Terrible,” said the Duchess, fanning herself languidly, “terrible. Pontchartrain is ordered to his estates; he is forbidden Paris and Versailles.”
“For how long?”