“We will see.” The Chevalier had resumed his jesting tone, for they were both being jealously watched. He nodded and slipped away. André, muttering, “Always, always,” slipped away, too. “Always.” Was Denise still to be won, or why had a tear stood in the boy’s eye when he had spoken?
“Madame!” he cried, aghast, as he stepped into the Marquise de Pompadour’s salon.
She was sitting in her peignoir in front of the fire, her hair about her lovely shoulders, staring at the smouldering logs. Trunks half-packed littered the room. Papers torn up and drawers half-open met the eye in every corner. And when she wearily turned round at his exclamation her face was the face of a woman sleepless, haggard, and worn—the face of one quieted by fear, misery, and failure.
“Ruined, Vicomte,” she murmured hopelessly, “ruined, and you, too.”
“Not yet,” he answered, with such poor courage as he could summon.
She flung back her hair and pointed at him with a bare arm. “Look in the glass, miserable fellow-gambler; your eyes are as mine, hunted by despair and defeat, and we are both right. My God, have I ever passed such a night? And unless I am gone from this palace in six hours—oh, they have warned me—I shall sleep in a cell at Vincennes. Courage, pshaw! The King alone could save me and I have lost him for ever.”
“Are you sure?”
She waved the question on one side. “It is a plot,” she cried passionately, “a plot of my enemies. They tried to murder you and they failed. Now this—this is their last device. They have poisoned the King, that his sick body may fall into the hands of the priests, who will torture his soul till they have frightened him into dismissing me. What can one woman do against the Church, whose bishops keep mistresses as the King does? Nothing, nothing. I am ruined. I fly from here that I may leave Versailles free. Do you save yourself. I can protect you no longer. Give me up, go back to the Court, trample on the unfortunate—it is not too late for you. Even my wenches know that, and dare to insult me.”
“No, Madame, I will not give you up.”
“Poor, mad fool!” But the sudden, radiant flush in that haggard face would have inspired a man under sentence of death to hope and joy.