"Your visit is very welcome to us, monsieur," said the Abbé, bowing; "though we are not of the world, we are yet weak enough to wish to know what the world does. What says Paris now of the death of Madame Doublet de Persan. Ah, the great folk I have met in her house—St. Palaze—Mairan, Devaur, Perrin! What a salon it was! I shall never forget her banquets."
The Abbé looked regretfully at the relics of the fish before him, and helped his memory with a deep sigh, and a second glass of the rich red Burgundy. But de Guyon, glad to be set going, answered him apace
"The loss of Madame Doublet de Persan is irretrievable," said he: "we shall not see her like again in Paris. Madame Geoffrin is old; Madame du Deffand grows tiresome. You have heard, monsieur, that her Majesty of Russia is anxious to carry the fashion of the city to the bourgeoisie of St. Petersburg. Madame Geoffrin has refused her twice. Madame du Deffand declines to be the instrument. Society, she says, is made up of persons incapable of knowledge, thought, and feeling. They have enough of those in Muscovy already."
"Ah!" cried the Abbé", with an unecclesiasticaj laugh, "and that is true. If all one hears of her Majesty is well said, she has as many affairs as a grisette of Bordeaux. But I never listen to such tales myself. Charity, monsieur, is a great virtue. Let us cultivate it always."
He smacked his lips over the wine, and Gabrielle de Vernet spoke again.
"You are riding to the palace at Fontainebleau, monsieur?" she asked de Guyon.
He was ready with his answer.
"I am riding to the palace when it is madame's pleasure to ride with me."
"My pleasure? Oh, my dear Monsieur de Guyon, what should I do at Fontainebleau?"
"Then you have not read of his Majesty's invitation, madame?"
"Certainly, I have not. I do not love letters."
He looked at her incredulously.
"But a command from the king; that is different."
"Not at all—it is the same thing; an expression of wishes one does not feel for a person in whom one has no interest. His Majesty's letter may wait the morning. I am in no hurry, and I am sure that he is not."
"And the note from your Cousin Claude?"
"Oh, my Cousin Claude writes always of himself—the subject in which he is most concerned."
De Guyon bit his lip. The woman was either a delightful actress, or a pretty simpleton gone crazy in the practice of a discredited creed.
"We have need of example at the Court, madame," said he. "You have heard the saying of the Abbé Cozer: 'In order to be something, a great part of the nobility is plunged into nothingness.'"
"And you think that I should be an example?"
"His Majesty is sure of it."
"But—you yourself?"
"I am of the king's opinion, as a soldier should ever be."
To his surprise she now laughed lightly.
"Should I have you for a pupil?" she asked.
"One of the most faithful."
"And you would walk with me in the park if I wore no other gown than this?"
"I would look for no greater honour. The best ornament of beauty is simplicity, madame."
"As the best weapon of intrigue is truth, monsieur."
Her mood passed for a moment to severity. Her lips were pursed up, her eyes searched him curiously. It was only for a moment, however. Presently she began to laugh again, and she murmured, as if to herself, some doggerel in which a wag had caricatured the fashionable coiffure of the hour
"Soutiens, Jasmin, je succombe, Et prends bien garde, faquin Qui si ma coiffure tombe Tu auras ton compte demain."
"They tell me," said she, "that women now wear their hair a foot high."
"To conceal the smallness of their heads, believe me, madame."
"What an excellent reason."
"Which, in your case, I venture to think would be no reason at all."
"A hit, a hit!" chimed in the Abbé, who had been busy with the wine-bottle. "They do say that the women at the Court nowadays carry much virtue on their skulls and little in their breasts. But, for myself, I pay no heed to these scandals. The tongue of the world is very wicked, Monsieur de Guyon."
"It is often very amusing," said de Guyon.
"And the more amusing because the less true," said madame.
"Exactly; truth is a very ordinary faculty to cultivate."
"And, therefore, you let it lie fallow."
De Guyon bit his lip again. In all their talk it seemed to him that the slim and graceful girl in the black robe was laughing at him. Accustomed to mould women to his mood, to bend them before the graces which it was the business of his life to cultivate, he knew not how to meet an antagonist against whom flattery was no weapon, and wit no defence. Nor was he willing to admit that he had cut a poor figure.
"I am tired to-night," he said, "but to-morrow——"
The supper being now done, the countess rose from the table and led the way into a little boudoir, not inelegantly furnished, and betraying nothing of that ascetic rigour elsewhere to be observed.
"We will talk of all these things in the morning, when you ride with me, monsieur," said she. "To-night we must amuse you."
He could not find it on his tongue to tell her that already she amused him—nay, fascinated him beyond any woman he had known. The vigour and freshness of her mind were already conquering him. He felt like a boy that had been beaten when he sat at her side to listen to the harpist, and to the ballads of one of the crows, delivered with a nasal drawl and a precision which were ludicrous. And when at last she bade him good-night, and he went up to the great oak-panelled bedchamber, he carried with him the memory of a sweet girlish face, of a woman's eyes that seemed to read his whole soul, of a voice which was soft and pleasing as the clear note of a bell.
From the window of his bedchamber he could look out upon a great sweep of the forest, flooded with the moonbeams. The scene rich in soft lights, in tremulous whisperings and suggestions of sleep fell in with his mood. From the inner court of the château he could hear snatches of song floating upon the stillness of the night; the harsh voice of the rogue Pepin, the deep, baying laugh of the musketeers, spoke of the passing of the wine-cup and of the camp jest. But the woodlands slept, and the rare cries of beasts or notes of birds were like challenges of sentinels that guarded the moon-lit ramparts.
The spell of it all was irresistible, dream-bearing. Long de Guyon sat at his open window, busy with his thoughts. And this thought was above all others: that the mistress of the château must not go to the palace, though her absence cost him his command.
CHAPTER V
THE ABBÉ GONDY COUNTS HIS SPOONS.
The Abbé Gondy descended from the grassy hill upon which he had watched de Guyon and Gabrielle de Vernet set out to the hunt; and so soon as the last of the horsemen had disappeared into the thick wood which lay upon the borders of the home park, he returned with slow steps to the château. For the first time for some years the Abbé was thinking. His ponderous mind creaked on its hinges: he had a problem to solve, and he admitted that he could make nothing of it.
At the door of the stables he found the rogue Pepin, basking in the glorious sunshine.
"Good morning, my friend," said the Abbé, suddenly conceiving a notion; "so you have deserted your master?"