A few days after the departure of Maurice for Dresden, the Duke de Montauban made a formal proposal for the hand of Mademoiselle de Merrivale. French etiquette not allowing a suitor the privilege of addressing the lady of his love, except through some kindred or friendly medium, his pretensions were of course made known to Bertha by her uncle. She received the communication with a fretful tapping of her little foot, and a toss of her gamboling, golden ringlets, which bore witness to her undisguised vexation and saucy disdain. The uncompromising manner in which she declined the proposed honor, threw her guardian, who had strengthened himself to enact the part of Cupid's messenger, by a somewhat liberal repast, into a state of astonishment which threatened alarming disturbance to his laboring digestive functions.
"Really, my dear, you speak so abruptly that you make me feel quite dyspeptic. What possible objection can you have to the young duke?"
"A very slight one, according to the creed which governs matrimonial alliances in our enlightened land," returned Bertha, pouting through her sarcasm. "My objection is simply that he is not an object of the slightest interest to me."
"But the match is such a suitable one that interest will come after it is consummated," answered her uncle.
"I do not intend to marry upon faith," retorted Bertha; then she broke out petulantly, "In a word, uncle, I do not intend to marry a man who is so insipid that I could not even quarrel with him; whom I could not think of seriously enough to take the trouble to dislike; to whom I am so thoroughly indifferent that for me he has no existence out of my immediate sight."
"There, there; keep cool, my dear. Nobody intends to force you to marry him. I did not know that it was necessary to be able to dislike a man, and to have a capacity for quarrelling with him, to fit him for the position of a husband. A very unwholesome doctrine. Emotion is particularly prejudicial to the animal economy. I thought the cultivated taste which the de Fleurys so evidently possess might have some weight with you. That dinner they gave us was unsurpassable, and"—
"If I am to marry to secure myself superlatively good dinners, I had better unite myself to an accomplished cook at once," replied Bertha, demurely.
"That's very tart, my dear. All acids disagree with me, and your acidulated observations are giving me unpleasant premonitory symptoms."
Bertha noticed that the bon vivant had in reality began to puff and pant as though he were suffering from an incipient nightmare. Being so thoroughly habituated to his idiosyncrasy that she had learned to regard it leniently, she made an effort to recover her good humor, and answered,—