And André listened with a unique thrill of awe, torn by conflicting emotions. Of his own free will he had asked for her help because his ambitions thrust the sacrifice on him. Away from her presence he recalled with a shiver a word, a gesture, a look, that spoke of a cold selfishness, even of an insolent vulgarity, so strangely blended with such grace, charm, and sympathy. Her low birth, her position at Versailles, stirred in him the contempt that was the heritage of eight centuries of noble ancestors. But once face to face with her all his misgivings, all his scorn and dislike, melted away. And he dimly felt that her victory was no mere triumph of a beautiful and gifted woman over a man’s passion, the appeal of the flesh to the flesh, such as he knew and had yielded to so often. This was no mere idol of a royal and fleeting devotion, no mere splendid courtesan of Nature’s making; it was the breath of the human spirit to the human spirit, blowing with the divine mystery of the wind where it listed on the answering spaces of the sea. And the soaring sweep of her ambition awoke in his soul ambitions not less daring and supreme. What man in whom the ceaseless call of the siren voices within, voices that no priestly code, no laws, and no arguments can still, voices whose sweetness and strength rise from the unfathomable abysses where flesh and spirit are indistinguishable--what man who has from childhood listened to those voices within but must feel the triumphant echo when he finds a woman tempted and inspired as he has been tempted and inspired? Madame de Pompadour might be what the Court said, but there were hopes, visions, in her which the Court and King would never fathom, which it might be well she herself could only see and follow because she must. She was fate, this woman, the fate of France. Let others judge her. He could not. It was enough to listen to her summons and to obey. And so they sat in silence lapped each in the glamour of their dreams. Sharp awaking came with the abrupt entrance of Madame’s mistress of the robes. “The King,” she cried, “the King is coming,” and she promptly fled. The Marquise rose almost in terror. “Quick, quick,” she whispered, “you have the key.” But Louis had already entered, sullen and bored. André’s genius did not desert him. “Madame,” he exclaimed with a matchless mixture of dismay and despair, “I am ruined. The King has discovered me.” Louis broke into a laugh. His royal and jaded humour was tickled by the comic dejection in the Vicomte’s face as he shamefacedly kneeled to kiss the King’s hand. “_Ma foi!_ The gentleman should think of the lady,” he said smiling, “and not merely of himself.” “True, Sire, when the lady will think presently of the gentleman. But in this case the lady will not think of him at all--alas!” André’s half-droll, half-passionate sigh provoked a second royal laugh.