Denise saw all the flushed faces, the joy, the banished fears. Too late! Too late! She could not save André. No, but perhaps she could still punish the woman who had seduced and ruined the man she loved.
“Of course I will gladly take my chance,” she answered, in a voice of reckless revolt.
André was pacing down the gallery. No one could have taken him for a ruined man, for aught than a proud officer in the Chevau-légers de la Garde, a Croix de St. Louis, and a Cordon Bleu. Though he knew that fate had at last smitten him down, the bitterest thought in his mind was that in a few hours Madame de Pompadour would be flying, too, from Versailles. The twelve hours would run out; she would never see him again.
“So it is Nérac after all?”
André started. The Chevalier was at his elbow. “No,” he answered, “it will not be Nérac.”
“The best swordsman in France will, to be sure, take a lot of killing,” the young man retorted lightly.
The flash in André’s eye showed with what true sympathy the Chevalier had divined his meaning.
“Well, Vicomte, let us say adieu. We shall not meet again in Versailles, nor elsewhere, I fancy.” Behind the tone of raillery peeped out a strange, almost tragic, gravity.
They shook hands in silence; had, in fact, separated a few paces when the Chevalier added carelessly, “There was a wench asking for you in the stables—Yvonne or some such name—I couldn’t make out what it was all about, but she seemed distressed at not getting word with you. Pardon my mentioning such a trifle.” He hurried away.
Yvonne! André halted dead. Yvonne! Name of St. Denys, what did that mean? For a moment he wavered as if he hoped against hope that Denise might appear. Then his spurs rang out on the polished floor. He was hurrying to the stables.