André had hurried from the Queen’s antechamber to learn what could be learned. A glimpse of Denise’s proud, pale face had been granted him as his spurs rang along the galleries. He had read in it pity wrestling with joy, and his soul was bitter within him. And the cold glances, the silence of his friends if he drew near, the shrugs of the shoulders, completed the tale. He, too, was ruined if the Court could have its way. His foes, though they had not published their evidence yet, could prove that he was the ally of Madame de Pompadour. His success inspired their jealousy, his ability their fear. They had tried to murder him in order to procure the final damning proof, and they had failed. But he could never be forgiven for the humiliation of the Duke of Pontchartrain, and Mont Rouge’s arm, not yet healed, cried out for vengeance. To-morrow it would be his turn for exile to Nérac, stripped of his honours, happy if permitted to eat his heart out in a debt-loaded château far from Paris and Versailles. André had played for a great stake; he had been within an ace of winning and now he had lost. Yet alone, shunned, neglected in this seething crowd, he found himself despising as he had never despised before the noblesse to which he belonged. The Court of a dying king does not show even an ancient and haughty nobility, justly proud of its manners and its refinement, at its best. Of the hundreds here were there any who felt any pity, any real affection, for the Sovereign over whose vices they were jesting, at whose weaknesses they jibed? Ambition, curiosity, greed, avarice, jealousy, could be read in many faces; the noblesse were here to worship and honour the rising sun, to flatter the Dauphin, to intrigue, to traffic at the foot of a new throne in the squalid and sleepless scuffle for places, pensions, ribbons, honours, power. André turned away and gazed out of the window, at the serenely noble gardens where the autumn sun was shining on the autumn trees, on the dewy grass, and gleaming statues. Yes, the peace of Nérac near the Loire would be welcome though bought by failure in this Court of Versailles. But there remained “No. 101,” and the fascination of that unsolved riddle gripped him to-day more mercilessly than ever before. The key to the mystery was so near. Was he, too, like all the others, to be baffled? And then there was Denise. He could have had her love; never could he forget that supreme moment when they had stood hand in hand, and life had given him all that a man’s soul could dream or desire; but he had lost Denise. Had he? Ah, had he? And as he stared out towards the Fountain of Neptune the gardens melted into a dark and secret staircase, and once again he heard the beating of the heart of the Pompadour. The vision filled him with a great pity. She was no worse than he had been. There were women in this Court—did he of all men not know it?—on whose carriages glowed coronets and haughty coats of arms, with as little right to absolution as Madame de Pompadour and the dying King. But they confessed and were absolved. Confession and absolution! The mummery of priests. She at least had sinned from ambition, because the flesh and the spirit would not permit her to remain Antoinette de Poisson. But she was a bourgeoise and they were noble. For all that, could those noble women or these men ever understand—would the world ever understand before it judged the heart of such a woman as the Pompadour? To him, perhaps, alone some of the inscrutable riddles of the spirit had been revealed because his heart, too, beat as hers did, and assuredly to that hated and feared woman to-day the bitterness of death would be sweet and welcome compared with the bitterness—the tragic bitterness—of failure. God alone—if there was a God—could know all and judge aright. For her and for him, in this hour of defeat, a great pity was surely fittest.
No one came to speak to him. The renegade Vicomte de Nérac, alone there in the window, scarcely moved even compassion. He had deserted his order; he deserved punishment—to be an example to traitors who betrayed their blood and their dignity—and the punishment had begun. No one? Yes, one; the Chevalier de St. Amant. André was surprised—touched.
“Pardon my presumption,” the young man said, “but you and I, Vicomte, have more than once crossed swords. I at least have done my best to defeat you; you have done yours to defeat me.”
“Certainly,” André admitted readily.
“And you have won.”
“Have I?” André smiled as he looked down the crowded Galerie des Glaces and back at the empty space where they stood.
“Yes, Vicomte, you are victor.” His tones trembled with emotion. “Victor in the one prize that matters—a woman’s heart. Do not you forget that. I at least cannot.”
André looked into his eyes, but he said nothing.
“Whether,” the Chevalier continued, “I go to Italy or you go to Nérac is a little thing; but the other is a great thing, and the result will always be what it is—always. It has been a fair fight if fights for a woman’s love can ever be fair. Will you give me the pleasure of shaking hands?”
“Yes,” André answered, with much emotion. “And if I am not sent to Nérac you shall not go to Italy.”