And he talked much of his ambitions. Was it not natural? Men were so different to women! He, proud of his love for her, was longing to show her his power, to rule and to command; she, half-shy of her love for him, felt her pride in submitting to his wish, in laying down at his feet the crown and sceptre of domination which she had wielded up to now with so proud and secure a hand.

Men were so different. That, too, she understood with the first touch of a man's kiss on her lips.

She chided herself for her mistrust of him; was it not natural that he should wish to rule? How proud was she now that her last act of absolute power should be the satisfaction of his desire.

That new Ministry? Well, he should have it as he wished. One word from her, and her father would grant it. Her husband must be the most powerful man in France; she would make him that, since she could: and then pillow her head on his breast and forget that she ever had other ambitions save to see him great.

Smiling through her tears, she begged his forgiveness for her mistrust of him, her doubts of the true worth of his love.

"It was because I knew so little," she said shyly as her trembling fingers toyed nervously with the lace of his cravat; "no man has ever loved me, Gaston – you understand? There were flatterers round me and sycophants – but love – "

She shook her head with a kind of joyous sadness for the past. It was so much better to be totally ignorant of love, and then to learn it – like this!

Then she became grave again.

"My father shall arrange everything this evening," she said, with a proud toss of her head. "To-morrow you may command, but to-night you shall remain a suppliant; grant me, I pray you, this fond little gratification of my overburdened vanity. Ask me again to grant your request, to be the means of satisfying your ambition. Put it into words, Gaston, tell me what it is you want!" she insisted, with a pretty touch of obstinacy; "it is my whim, and remember I am still the arbiter of your fate."

"On my knees, my queen," he said, curbing his impatience at her childish caprice; and, striving to hide the note of triumph in his voice, he put both knees to the ground and bent his head in supplication. "I crave of your bountiful graciousness to accord me the power to rule France by virtue of my office as Chief Comptroller of her revenues."

"Your desire is granted, sir," she said with a final assumption of pride; "the last favour I shall have the power to bestow I now confer on you. To-morrow I abdicate," she continued, with a strange little sigh, half-tearful, half-joyous, "to-morrow I shall own a master. M. le Comte de Stainville, Minister of the Exchequer of France, behold your slave, Lydie, bought this night with the priceless currency of your love! Oh, Gaston, my lord, my husband!" she said, with a sudden uncontrollable outburst of tears, "be a kind master to your slave – she gives up so much for your dear sake!"

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST TRICK

A shrill laugh suddenly broke on their ears. So absorbed had Lydie been in her dream that she had completely forgotten the other world, the one that laughed and talked, that fought and bickered on the other side of the damask curtain which was the boundary of her own universe.

Gaston de Stainville, we may assume, was not quite so unprepared for interruption as the young girl, for even before the shrill laugh had expended itself, he was already on his feet, and had drawn the damask curtain back again, interposing the while his broad figure between Lydie d'Aumont and the unwelcome intruder on their privacy.

"Ah! at last you are tracked to earth, mauvais sujet," said Mme. de Pompadour, as soon as the Comte de Stainville stood fully revealed before her. "Faith! I have had a severe task. His Majesty demanded your presence a while ago, sir, and hath gone to sleep in the interval of waiting. Nay! nay! you need make neither haste nor excuses. The King sleeps, Monsieur, else I were not here to remind you of duty."

She stood at the bottom of the steps looking up with keen, malicious eyes at Gaston's figure framed in the opening of the alcove, and peering inquisitively into the sombre recesses, wherein already she had caught a glimpse of a white satin skirt and the scintillation of many diamonds.

"What say you, milady?" she added, turning to the florid, somewhat over-dressed woman who stood by her side. "Shall we listen to the excuses M. de Stainville seems anxious to make; meseems they are clad in white satin and show a remarkably well-turned ankle."

But before Lady Eglinton could frame a reply, Lydie d'Aumont had risen, and placing her hand on Stainville's shoulder, she thrust him gently aside and now stood smiling beside him, perfectly self-possessed, a trifle haughty, looking down on Jeanne de Pompadour's pert face and on the older lady's obviously ill-humoured countenance.

"Nay, Mme. la Marquise," she said, in her own quiet way, "M. le Comte de Stainville's only excuse for his neglect of courtly duties stands before you now."

"Ma foi, Mademoiselle!" retorted the Marquise somewhat testily. "His Majesty, being over-gallant, would perhaps be ready enough to accept it, and so, no doubt, would the guests of M. le Duc, your father – always excepting Mlle, de St. Romans," she added, with more than a point of malice, "and she is not like to prove indulgent."

But Lydie was far too proud, far too conscious also of her own worth, to heed the petty pinpricks which the ladies of the Court of Louis XV were wont to deal so lavishly to one another. She knew quite well that Gaston's name had oft been coupled with that of Mlle. de St. Romans – "la belle brune de Bordeaux," as she was universally called – daughter of the gallant Maréchal just home from Flanders. This gossip was part and parcel of that multifarious scandal to which she had just assured her lover that she no longer would lend an ear.

Therefore she met Mme. de Pompadour's malicious look with one of complete indifference, and ignoring the remark altogether, she said calmly, without the slightest tremor in her voice or hint of annoyance in her face:

"Did I understand you to say, Madame, that His Majesty was tired and desired to leave?"

The Marquise looked vexed, conscious of the snub; she threw a quick look of intelligence to Lady Eglinton, which Lydie no doubt would have caught had she not at that moment turned to her lover in order to give him a smile of assurance and trust.

He, however, seemed self-absorbed just now, equally intent in avoiding her loving glance and Mme. de Pompadour's mocking gaze.

"The King certainly asked for M. de Stainville a while ago," here interposed Lady Eglinton, "and M. le Chevalier de Saint George has begun to make his adieux."

"We'll not detain Mlle. d'Aumont, then," said Mme. de Pompadour. "She will wish to bid our young Pretender an encouraging farewell! Come, M. de Stainville," she added authoritatively, "we'll to His Majesty, but only for two short minutes, then you shall be released man, have no fear, in order to make your peace with la belle brune de Bordeaux. Brrr! I vow I am quite frightened; the minx's black eyes anon shot daggers in this direction."

She beckoned imperiously to Gaston, who still seemed ill at ease, and ready enough to follow her. Lydie could not help noting with a slight tightening of her heartstrings with what alacrity he obeyed.

"Men are so different!" she sighed.

She would have allowed the whole world to look on and to sneer whilst she spent the rest of the evening beside her lover, talking foolish nonsense, planning out the future, or sitting in happy silence, heedless of sarcasm, mockery, or jests.

Her eyes followed him somewhat wistfully as he descended the two steps with easy grace, and with a flourishing bow and a "Mille grâces, Mlle. Lydie!" he turned away without another backward look, and became merged with the crowd.

Her master and future lord, the man whose lips had touched her own! How strange!

She herself could not thus have become one of the throng. Not just yet. She could not have detached herself from him so readily. For some few seconds – minutes perhaps – her earnest eyes tried to distinguish the pale mauve of his coat in the midst of that ever-changing kaleidoscope of dazzling colours. But the search made her eyes burn, and she closed them with the pain.

Men were so different!

And though she had learned much, understood much, with that first kiss, she was still very ignorant, very inexperienced, and quite at sea in those tortuous paths wherein Gaston and Mme. de Pompadour and all the others moved with such perfect ease.

In the meanwhile, M. de Stainville and the Marquise had reached the corridor. From where they now stood they could no longer see the alcove whence Lydie's aching eyes still searched for them in vain; with a merry little laugh Madame drew her dainty hand away from her cavalier's arm.

"There! am I not the beneficent fairy, you rogue?" she said, giving him a playful tap with her fan. "Fie! Will you drive in double harness? You'll come to grief, fair sir, and meseems 'twere not good to trifle with either filly."

"Madame, I entreat!" he protested feebly, wearied of the jest. But he tried not to scowl or to seem impatient, for he was loth to lose the good graces of a lady whose power and influence were unequalled even by Lydie d'Aumont.

Pompadour had favoured him from the very day of her first entry in the brilliant Court of Versailles. His handsome face, his elegant manners, and, above all, his reputation as a consummate mauvais sujet had pleased Mme. la Marquise. Gaston de Stainville was never so occupied with pleasures or amours, but he was ready to pay homage to one more beautiful woman who was willing to smile upon him.

But though she flirted with Gaston, the wily Marquise had no wish to see him at the head of affairs, the State-appointed controller of her caprices and of the King's munificence. He was pleasant enough as an admirer, unscrupulous and daring; but as a master? No.

The thought of a marriage between Mlle. d'Aumont and M. de Stainville, with its obvious consequences on her own future plans, was not to be tolerated for a moment; and Madame wondered greatly how far matters had gone between these two, prior to her own timely interference.

"There!" she said, pointing to an arched doorway close at hand; "go and make your peace whilst I endeavour to divert His Majesty's thoughts from your own wicked person; and remember," she added coquettishly as she bobbed him a short, mocking curtsey, "when you have reached the blissful stage of complete reconciliation, that you owe your happiness to Jeanne de Pompadour."

Etiquette demanded that he should kiss the hand which she now held extended toward him; this he did with as good a grace as he could muster. In his heart of hearts he was wishing the interfering lady back in the victualler's shop of Paris; he was not at all prepared at this moment to encounter the jealous wrath of "la Belle brune de Bordeaux."

Vaguely he thought of flight, but Mme. de Pompadour would not let him off quite so easily. With her own jewelled hand she pushed aside the curtain which masked the doorway, and with a nod of her dainty head she hinted to Gaston to walk into the boudoir.

There was nothing for it but to obey.

"Mlle. de Saint Romans," said the Marquise, peeping into the room in order to reassure herself that the lady was there and alone, "see, I bring the truant back to you. Do not be too severe on him; his indiscretion has been slight, and he will soon forget all about it, if you will allow him to make full confession and to do penance at your feet."

Then she dropped the curtain behind Gaston de Stainville, and, as an additional precaution, lest those two in there should be interrupted too soon, she closed the heavy folding doors which further divided the boudoir from the corridor.

"Now, if milady plays her cards cleverly," she murmured, "she and I will have done a useful evening's work."

CHAPTER VI
A FALSE POSITION

"Gaston!"

M. de Stainville shook off his moodiness. The vision of la belle Irène standing there in the satin-hung boudoir, the soft glow of well-shaded candles shedding an elusive, rosy light on the exquisite figure, with head thrown back and arms stretched out in a gesture of passionate appeal, was too captivating to permit of any other thought having sway over his brain, for the next second or two at any rate.

"I thought you had completely forgotten me to-night," she said as he came rapidly toward her, "and that I should not even get speech of you."

She took his hand and led him gently to a low divan; forcing him to sit down beside her, she studied his face intently for a moment or two.

"Was it necessary?" she asked abruptly.

"You know it was, Irène," he said, divining her thoughts, plunging readily enough now into the discussion which he knew was inevitable. His whole nature rebelled against this situation; he felt a distinct lowering of his manly pride; his masterful spirit chafed at the thought of an explanation which Irène claimed the right to demand.

"I told you, Irène," he continued impatiently, "that I would speak to Mlle. d'Aumont to-night, and if possible obtain a definite promise from her."

"And have you obtained that definite promise?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Lydie d'Aumont promised you that you should be the new State-appointed Minister of Finance?" she insisted.

"Yes! I have her word."

"And – what was the cost?"

"The cost?"

"Yes, the cost," she said, with what was obviously enforced calm. "Lydie d'Aumont did not give you that promise for nothing; you gave her or promised her something in return. What was it?"

Her lips were trembling, and she had some difficulty in preventing her nervous fingers from breaking into pieces the delicate mother-of-pearl fan which they held. But she was determined to appear perfectly calm, and that he should in no way suspect her of working up to a vulgar scene of jealousy.

"You are foolish, Irène!" he said, with his characteristic nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.

"Foolish?" she repeated, still keeping her temper well under control, though it was her voice which was shaking now. "Foolish? Ma foi! when my husband obtains – "

"'Sh! 'sh! 'sh!" he said quickly, as with rough gesture he grasped her wrist, and gave it a warning pressure.

"Bah!" she retorted; "no one can hear."

"The walls have ears!"

"And if they have? I cannot keep up this deception for ever, Gaston."

"'Twere worse than foolish to founder within sight of port."

"You trust Lydie d'Aumont's word then?"

"If you will do nothing to spoil the situation!" he retorted grimly. "Another word such as you said just now, too long a prolongation of this charming tête-à-tête, and Mlle. d'Aumont will make a fresh promise to some one else."

"I was right, then?"

"Right in what?"

"Mlle. d'Aumont promised you the appointment because you made love to her."

"Irène!"

"Why don't you tell me?" she said with passionate vehemence. "Can't you see that I have been torturing myself with jealous fears? I am jealous – can I help it? I suffered martyrdom when I saw you there with her! I could not hear your words, but I could see the earnestness of your attitude. Do I not know every line of your figure, every gesture of your hand? Then the curtain fell at your touch, and I could no longer see – only divine – only tremble and fear. Mon Dieu! did I not love you as I do, were my love merely foolish passion, would I not then have screamed out the truth to all that jabbering crowd that stood between me and you, seeming to mock me with its prattle, and its irresponsible laughter? I am unnerved, Gaston," she added, with a sudden breakdown of her self-control, her voice trembling with sobs, the tears welling to her eyes, and her hands beating against one another with a movement of petulant nervosity. "I could bear it, you know, but for this secrecy, this false position; it is humiliating to me, and – Oh, be kind to me – be kind to me!" she sobbed, giving finally way to a fit of weeping. "I have spent such a miserable evening, all alone."

Stainville's expressive lips curled into a smile. "Be kind to me!" – the same pathetic prayer spoken to him by Lydie a very short while ago. Bah! how little women understood ambition! Even Lydie! Even Irène!

And these two women were nothing to him. Lydie herself was only a stepping-stone; the statuesque and headstrong girl made no appeal to the essentially masculine side of his nature, and he had little love left now for the beautiful passionate woman beside him, whom in a moment of unreasoning impulse he had bound irrevocably to him.

Gaston de Stainville aspired to military honours a couple of years ago; the Maréchal de Saint Romans, friend and mentor of the Dauphin, confidant of the Queen, seemed all-powerful then. Unable to win the father's consent to his union with Irène – for the Maréchal had more ambitious views for his only daughter and looked with ill-favour on the young gallant who had little to offer but his own handsome person, an ancient name, and a passionate desire for advancement – Gaston, who had succeeded in enchaining the young girl's affections, had no difficulty in persuading her to agree to a secret marriage.

But the wheel of fate proved as erratic in its movements as the flights of Stainville's ambition. With the appearance of Jeanne Poisson d'Étioles at the Court of Versailles, the Queen's gentle influence over Louis XV waned, and her friends fell into disfavour and obscurity. The Maréchal de Saint Romans was given an unimportant command in Flanders; there was nothing to be gained for the moment from an open alliance with his daughter. Gaston de Stainville, an avowed opportunist, paid his court to the newly risen star and was received with smiles, but he could not shake himself from the matrimonial fetters which he himself had forged.

The rapid rise of the Duc d'Aumont to power and the overwhelming ascendancy of Lydie in the affairs of State had made the young man chafe bitterly against the indestructible barrier which he himself had erected between his desires and their fulfilment. His passion for Irène did not yield to the early love of his childhood's days; it was drowned in the newly risen flood of more boundless ambition. It was merely the casting aside of one stepping-stone for another more firm and more prominent.

Just now in the secluded alcove, when the proud, reserved girl had laid bare before him the secrets of her virginal soul, when with pathetic abandonment she laid the sceptre of her influence and power at his feet, he had felt neither compunction nor remorse; now, when the woman who had trusted and blindly obeyed him asked for his help and support in a moral crisis, he was conscious only of a sense of irritation and even of contempt, which he tried vainly to disguise.

At the same time he knew well that it is never wise to tax a woman's submission too heavily. Irène had yielded to his wish that their marriage be kept a secret for the present only because she, too, was tainted with a touch of that unscrupulous ambition which was the chief characteristic of the epoch. She was shrewd enough to know that her husband would have but little chance in elbowing his way up the ladder of power – "each rung of which was wrapped in a petticoat," as M. de Voltaire had pertinently put it – if he was known to be dragging a wife at his heels; Gaston had had no difficulty in making her understand that his personality as a gay and irresponsible butterfly, as a man of fashion, and a squire of dames, was the most important factor in the coming fight for the virtual dominion of France.

She had accepted the position at first with an easy grace; she knew her Gaston, and knew that he must not be handled with too tight a curb; moreover, her secret status pleased her, whilst he remained avowedly faithful to her she liked to see him court and smile, a preux chevalier with the ladies; she relished the thought of being the jailer to that gaily-plumaged bird, whom bright eyes and smiling lips tried to entice and enchain.

But to-night a crisis had come; something in Gaston's attitude toward Lydie had irritated her beyond what she was prepared to endure. His love for her had begun to wane long ago; she knew that, but she was not inclined to see it bestowed on another. Stainville feared that she was losing self-control, and that she might betray all and lose all if he did not succeed in laying her jealous wrath to rest. He was past master in the art of dealing with a woman's tears.

"Irène," he said earnestly, "I have far too much respect for you to look upon this childish outburst of tears as representing the true state of your feelings. You are unnerved – you own it yourself. Will you allow me to hold your hand?" he said with abrupt transition.

Then as she yielded her trembling hand to him he pressed a lingering kiss in the icy cold palm.

"Will you not accept with this kiss the assurance of my unswerving faith and loyalty?" he said, speaking in that low, deep-toned voice of his which he knew so well how to make tender and appealing to the heart of women. "Irène, if I have committed an indiscretion to-night, if I allowed my ambition to soar beyond the bounds of prudence, will you not believe that with my ambition my thoughts flew up to you and only came down to earth in order to rest at your feet?"

He had drawn her close to him, ready to whisper in her ear, as he had whispered half an hour ago in those of Lydie. He wanted this woman's trust and confidence just a very little while longer, and he found words readily enough with which to hoodwink and to cajole. Irène was an easier prey than Lydie. She was his wife and her ambitions were bound up with his; her mistrust only came from jealousy, and jealousy in a woman is so easily conquered momentarily, if she be beautiful and young and the man ardent and unscrupulous.

Gaston as yet had no difficult task; but every day would increase those difficulties, until he had finally grasped the aim of his ambitious desires and had rid himself of Lydie.

"Irène!" he whispered now, for he felt that she was consoled, and being consoled, she was ready to yield. "Irène, my wife, a little more patience, a little more trust. Two days – a week – what matter? Shut your eyes to all save this one moment to-night, when your husband is at your feet and when his soul goes out to yours in one long, and tender kiss. Your lips, ma mie!"

She bent her head to him. Womanlike, she could not resist. Memory came to his aid as he pleaded, the memory of those early days on the vine-clad hills near Bordeaux, when he had wooed and won her with the savour of his kiss.