“More than ever the grisette must leave,” the Abbé de St. Victor pronounced. “Else the Vicomte will be her agent and effect a reconciliation.”
Mont Rouge and the Duke de Pontchartrain were holding an earnest conversation in whispers with the Chevalier. What the Chevalier said clearly gave them great satisfaction, and Mont Rouge studied with ill-concealed joy a paper which looked like a plan that the Chevalier had produced.
“The time has come for the dice,” Mont Rouge said decisively. With the help of the Duke he cleared a table and laid out on it four dice-boxes.
“The ladies will throw as well as the gentlemen?” asked the Comtesse des Forges. She was looking meaningly at Mont Rouge.
“It is hardly necessary,” the Duke said carelessly. “But if one lady be good enough to take her chance then all must. What do you say, ladies?”
“I am always unlucky,” remarked the Duchess, “so I will take my chance.”
“And you, Marquise?” the Duke turned deferentially to Denise. Mont Rouge took up one of the dice-boxes and began to rattle it noisily. Had his courage not been beyond reproach, a close observer might have thought he was at that moment very nervous. The Comtesse des Forges was yawning at her beautiful face in the mirror.
Before Denise could reply, André was seen standing on the threshold. A cold air seemed at once to blow over the room. No one offered a word of greeting, and the conversation proceeded just as if a lackey had entered. The Chevalier, indeed, went so far as to bow haughtily and to leave the room with the air of a man who found André’s presence an intolerable intrusion. Denise alone marked how pale André was and how his dark eyes burned. A choking sensation, as if her heart had ceased to beat, mastered her.
“I am sure,” André said very slowly and distinctly, “it will interest you ladies and gentlemen to know that I have ceased to be Captain of the Queen’s Guards, by His Majesty’s commands.” A rustle of skirts, a suppressed exclamation, a snuff-box dropped, showed in the dead silence the emotion this news had produced. “I am ordered,” André continued, “to retire to Nérac until His Majesty is pleased to change his mind. My congratulations, ladies and gentlemen. You desired and plotted my ruin. You have achieved it.”
The curtain dropped. “And you, Marquise?” repeated the Duke, imperturbably, holding out a dice-box to Denise as if nothing had interrupted the conversation.