There was no mistaking the sly leer which appeared in his eye as he spoke. Lydie felt her cheeks flaming up with sudden wrath; wrath, which as quickly gave way to an awful, an unconquerable horror.

Still she did not suspect. Her feet once more trod the monotonous measure, but her heart beat wildly against the stiff corslet; the room began to whirl round before her eyes; a sickening sense of dizziness threatened to master her. Every drop of blood had left her cheeks, leaving them ashen pale.

She was afraid; and the fear was all the more terrible as she could not yet give it a name. But the sense of an awful catastrophe was upon her, impending, not yet materialized, but which would overwhelm her inevitably when it came.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AWFUL CERt.i.tUDE

Then all at once she understood!

There at the further end of the room, against the rich gold of the curtain, she saw Gaston de Stainville standing beside his wife and one or two other women, the centre of a gaily chattering crowd, he himself chattering with them, laughing and jesting, whilst from time to time his white and slender hand raised a gold-rimmed gla.s.s to his eye, with a gesture of fatuity and affectation.

Something in her look, though it had only lasted a few seconds, must then and there have compelled his own, for he suddenly dropped his gla.s.s, and their eyes met across the room; Lydie's inquiring, only just beginning to doubt, and fearful, as if begging for rea.s.surance!

his, mocking and malicious, triumphant too and self-flattering, whilst la belle Irene, intercepting this exchange of glances, laughed loudly and shrugged her bare shoulders.

Lydie was not that type of woman who faints, or screams at moments of acute mental agony. Even now, when the full horror of what she had so suddenly realized, a.s.sailed her with a crushing blow that would have stunned a weaker nature, she contrived to pull herself together and to continue the dance to the end. The King--beginning to feel bored in the company of this silent and obviously absent-minded woman--made no further effort at conversation. She had disappointed him; for Monsieur le Comte de Stainville's innuendoes had led him to hope that the beautiful marble statue had at last come to life and would henceforth become a valuable addition to the light-hearted circle of friends that rallied round him, helping to make him forget the ennui of his matrimonial and official life.

Thus the dance was concluded between them in silence. Louis was too dull and vapid to notice the change in his partner's att.i.tude, the icy touch of her fingers, the deathly whiteness of her lips. But presently he, too, caught sight of Gaston de Stainville and immediately there crept into his face that malicious leer, which awhile ago had kindled Lydie's wrath.

Whether she noted it now or not, it were difficult to say. Only a great determination kept her from making a display before all these indifferent eyes, of the agonizing torture of her mind and heart.

With infinite relief, she made her final curtsey to her partner, and allowed him to lead her back to her official place beside the royal das. She could not see clearly, for her eyes had suddenly filled with burning tears of shame and bitter self-accusation. She bit her lips lest a cry of pain escaped them.

"You are ill, my dear! Come away!"

The voice--gentle and deeply concerned--was that of her father. She did not dare look at him, lest she should break down, but she allowed him to lead her away from the immediate noise and glare.

"What is it, Lydie?" queried M. le Duc again, more anxiously, as soon as they had reached a small and secluded alcove. "Has anything further happened? Par Dieu, if that man has again dared . . ."

"What man, father?" she interrupted.

Her voice had no tone in it, she wondered even if M. le Duc would hear, but he was talking ambiguously and she had had enough of misunderstandings to-day.

"What man?" rejoined Monsieur le Duc d'Aumont irritably. "Your husband of course. I have heard rumours about his behaviour to you, and by all the heathen G.o.ds . . ."

He paused, astonished and almost awed, for Lydie had laughed suddenly, laughed loudly and long, and there was such a strange ring in that unnatural mirth, that Monsieur le Duc feared lest excitement had been too much for his daughter's brain.

"Lydie! what is it? You must tell me . . . Lydie . . ." he urged, "listen to me . . . do you hear me, Lydie?"

She seemed to be collecting her scattered senses now, but great sobs of hysterical laughter still shook her from head to foot, and she leaned against her father's arm almost as if she feared to fall.

"Yes, father dear," she said fairly coherently, "I do hear you, and I pray you take no heed of me. Much hath occurred to-day to disturb me and my nerves seem to be on the jar. Perhaps I do not see quite clearly either. Father, tell me," she added with a voice almost steady, but harsh and trenchant, and with glowing eyes fixed on the Duke's face, "did I perceive Gaston de Stainville in the crowd just now?"

"You may have done, my dear," he replied with some hesitation. "I do not know."

She had been quick enough to note that, at mention of Gaston's name, his eyes suddenly wore a curious shamefaced expression and avoided meeting her own. She pressed her point more carelessly, feeling that there was something that he would only tell her, if she was perfectly calm and natural in her questionings.

"Then he is here?" she asked.

"Yes . . . I believe so . . . why do you ask?"

"I thought him gone," she said lightly, "that was all. Methought there was an errand he had meant to perform."

"Oh! there is no immediate hurry for that!"

Monsieur le Duc d'Amont, never a very keen observer, was feeling quite rea.s.sured by her calmer mood. His daughter had been overwrought.

Events had crowded in upon her, thick and fast, some of them of an unpleasant nature: her final surrender to Gaston de Stainville could not have occurred without a wrench; sentiment--he supposed--having conquered friendship and loyalty, no doubt remorse had held sway for awhile. He certainly thought his daughter quite at one with him and his confederates in the treacherous plan; it never entered his head for a moment to blame her for this _volte-face_, nor did he realize that Gaston's att.i.tude had been one of lying infamy. He knew her for a pure-minded and exceptionally proud woman and his paternal heart had no fear that she would stoop to a vulgar intrigue, at the same time he had no reason to doubt that she had yielded to the persuasive powers of a man whom she had certainly loved at one time, who and of necessity would still exercise a certain influence over her.

And now she was no doubt anxious to know something of future plans she had probably not heard what had been decided with regard to the expedition, and perhaps fretted as to how her own actions had been interpreted by her father and the King. It was with a view to rea.s.suring her on all these points that he now added:

"We are not thinking of sending _Le Monarque_."

"Ah? I thought that she would have been the most likely vessel. . ."

"_Le Levantin_ will be safer," he explained, "but she will not be ready to put to sea for five or six days, so Gaston will not start until then; but you need have no fear, dear; the orders together with the map and the precious letter, which you have given him, are quite safe in his hands. He is too deeply concerned in the success of the expedition to think of betraying you, even if his regard were less genuine. . . . And we are all deeply grateful to you, my dear . . . It was all for the best. . ."

He patted her hand with kindly affection, much relieved now, for she seemed quite calm and the colour even was coming back to her cheeks: all the afternoon he had been dreading this meeting with his daughter, for he had not seen her since he learned from Gaston that she had yielded to his entreaties, and given him the map and letter which would help the King of France to betray his friend: now he was glad to find that--save for an unusual hysterical outburst--she took the whole matter as coolly as he did himself.

There is no doubt that there are moments in life when a crisis is so acute, a catastrophe so overwhelming, that all our faculties become completely deadened: our individuality goes out of us, and we become mere dolls moving automatically by muscular action and quite independently of our brain.

Thus it was with Lydie.

Her father's words could not be misunderstood. They left her without that last faint shadow of doubt which, almost unbeknown to herself, had been her main support during the past few minutes of this intense agony. Now the tiny vestige of hope had vanished. Blank despair invaded her brain and she had the sensation as if sorrow had turned it into a pulpy ma.s.s, a great deal too bulky for her head, causing it to throb and to ache intolerably. Beyond that, the rest of herself as it were, became quite mechanical. She was glad that her father said nothing more about the scheme. She knew all that she wanted to know: Gaston's hideous, horrible treachery, the clumsy trap into which she had fallen, and above all the hopeless peril into which she had plunged the very man whom she had wished to save.

She had been the most perfidious traitor amongst them all, for the unfortunate prince had given her his friendship, and had trusted her more fully than he had others.

And then there was her husband!

Of him she would not think, for that way lay madness surely!

She managed to smile to her father, and to rea.s.sure him. Presently she would tell him all . . . to-morrow perhaps, but not just yet . . . She did not hate him somehow. She could not have hated him, for she knew him and had always loved him. But he was weak and easily misguided.

Heavens above! had anyone been more culpably weak, more misguided than she herself?

Monsieur le Duc, fully satisfied in his mind now by her outward calm, and the steady brilliance of her eyes, recalled her to her official duties.

"Dancing is over, Lydie," he said, "have you not a few presentations to Her Majesty to effect?"

"Oh yes!" she said perfectly naturally, "of a truth I had almost forgotten . . . the first time for many years, eh? my dear father. . .

How some people will gossip at this remissness of Madame la Grande Marechale de la Cour . . . will you conduct me straight away to Her Majesty? . . . I hope she has not yet noticed my absence."

She leaned somewhat heavily on her father's arm, for she was afraid that she could not otherwise have walked quite straight. She fully realized what it meant when men talked of drunkenness amongst themselves. Copious libations must produce--she thought--just this same sensation of swaying and tottering, and hideous, painful giddiness.