Petticoat Rule

Excerpt: ...causes her to abandon him to his fate?" "Not France, Gaston," she protested. Pg 194 "And not you, surely. I would stake my life on your loyalty to a friend." "Of course," she said simply. "I knew it," he ejaculated triumphantly, as if this discovery had indeed caused him joyful surprise. "Every fibre in my soul told me that I would not appeal to you in vain. You are clever, Lydie, you are rich, you are powerful. I feel as if I could turn to you as to a man. Prince Charles Edward Stuart honoured me with his friendship: I am not presumptuous when I say that I stood in his heart second only to Lord Eglinton. . . . But because I hold a secondary place I dared not thrust my advice, my prayers, my help forward, whilst I firmly believed that his greater friend was at work on his behalf. But now I can bear the suspense no longer. The crisis has become over-acute. The Stuart prince is in deadly danger, not only from supineness but from treachery." Clever Gaston! how subtle and how shrewd! she would never have to come to meet him on this ground, but he called to her. He came to fetch her, as it were, and led her along the road. He did not offer to guide her faltering footsteps, he simulated lameness, and asked for assistance instead of offering it. So clever was this move that Lydie was thrown off her guard. At the word "treachery" she looked eagerly into his eyes. "What makes you think . . . ?" she asked. "Oh! I have scented it in the air for some days. The King himself wears an air of shamefacedness when the Stuart prince is mentioned. Madame de Pompadour lately hath talked freely of the completion of her ch


Genre: Literary Fiction