"Far from that, for look at the young Frenchman."
"What! the Vicomte de Bragelonne! are you smitten too! By Heaven, they will all become mad about him one after the other; but he, on the contrary, has a reason for being melancholy."
"Why so?"
"Oh! indeed! you wish me to betray state secrets, do you?"
"If I wish it, you must do it, since you told me you were quite ready to do everything I wished."
"Well, then, he is bored in his own country. Does that satisfy you?"
"Bored?"
"Yes, a proof that he is a simpleton; I allow him to fall in love with Miss Mary Grafton, and he feels bored. Can you believe it?"
"Very good; it seems then, that if you were to find Miss Lucy Stewart indifferent to you, you would console yourself by falling in love with Miss Mary Grafton."
"I don't say that; in the first place, you know that Mary Grafton does not care for me; besides, a man can only console himself for a lost affection by the discovery of a new one. Again, however, I repeat, the question is not of myself, but of that young man. One might almost be tempted to call the girl he has left behind him a Helen—a Helen before her introduction to Paris, of course."