The stream of city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit of being perfect of its kind--softly insinuating and sweetly censorious, superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery topics like skaters on thin ice, filling their listener with anxiety lest they should break through. But Madame de Grandmaison and her companion were too well exercised in the gymnastics of gossip to overbalance themselves. Half Quebec was run over and run down in the course of an hour.
Lady de Tilly listened with growing impatience to their frivolities, but she knew society too well to quarrel with its follies when it was of no service to do so: she contented herself with hoping it was not so bad. The Pope was not Catholic enough to suit some people, but, for her part, she had generally found people better than they were called.
A rather loud but well-bred exclamation of Madame de Grandmaison roused Amelie from her day-dream.
"Not going to the Intendant's ball at the Palace, my Lady de Tilly! neither you nor Mademoiselle de Repentigny, whom we are so sorry not to have seen to-day? Why, it is to be the most magnificent affair ever got up in New France. All Quebec has rung with nothing else for a fortnight, and every milliner and modiste in the city has gone almost insane over the superlative costumes to be worn there."
"And it is to be the most select in its character," chimed in Madame Couillard; "all gentry and noblesse, not one of the bourgeois to be invited. That class, especially the female portion of them, give themselves such airs nowadays! As if their money made them company for people of quality! They must be kept down, I say, or--"
"And the Royal Intendant quite agrees with the general sentiment of the higher circles," responded Madame de Grandmaison. "He is for keeping down--"
"Noblesse! Noblesse!" The Lady de Tilly spoke with visible impatience. "Who is this Royal Intendant who dares cast a slight upon the worthy, honest bourgeoisie of this city? Is he noble himself? Not that I would think worse of him were he not, but I have heard it disputed. He is the last one who should venture to scorn the bourgeoisie."
Madame de Grandmaison fanned herself in a very stately manner.
"Oh, my Lady, you surely forget! The Chevalier Bigot is a distant relative of the Count de Marville, and the Chevalier de Grandmaison is a constant visitor at the Intendant's! But he would not have sat at his table an hour had he not known that he was connected with the nobility. The Count de Marville--"
"The Count de Marville!" interrupted the Lady de Tilly, whose politeness almost gave way. "Truly, a man is known by the company he keeps. No credit to any one to be connected with the Count de Marville."
Madame de Grandmaison felt rather subdued. She perceived that the Lady de Tilly was not favorably impressed towards the Intendant.
But she tried again: "And then, my Lady, the Intendant is so powerful at Court. He was a particular friend of Madame d'Etioles before she was known at Court, and they say he managed her introduction to the King at the famous masked ball at the Hotel de Ville, when His Majesty threw his handkerchief at her, and she became first dame du palais and the Marquise de Pompadour. She has ever remained his firm friend, and in spite of all his enemies could do to prevent it His Majesty made him Intendant of New France."
"In spite of all the King's friends could do, you mean," replied the Lady de Tilly, in a tone the sound of which caught the ear of Amelie, and she knew her aunt was losing patience with her visitors.
Lady de Tilly heard the name of the royal mistress with intense disgust, but her innate loyalty prevented her speaking disparagingly of the King. "We will not discuss the Court," said she, "nor the friendships of this Intendant. I can only pray his future may make amends for his past. I trust New France may not have as much reason as poor lost Acadia to lament the day of his coming to the Colonies."
