“Indeed I do, Annot, and love him dearly; he is an old sweetheart of mine.”
“He’s too young to have a sweetheart yet, Mademoiselle; but you’ll see some of the ladies will be quarrelling for him yet, when he’s a year or two older. Well, after sending Jacques over here, he went back as bold as possible into the middle of the republicans, before Santerre and all. M. Denot was at his worst then. He had hold of Mademoiselle Agatha, and was dragging her away from the Marquis, in spite of Santerre and the whole of them, when the Chevalier raises his stick, and strikes him across the face. I warrant you he let go Mademoiselle’s hand when he felt the sharp stick come across his eyes.”
“It must have been a horrid sight for Agatha,” said Madame de Lescure.
“Oh! indeed it was, Madame. Only fancy that traitor Denot going on in that way, right before her eyes all night, and no one to protect her but the little Chevalier; for when it got late M. Santerre threw himself on the floor, and slept and snored like a hog. They say it was all for love, Mademoiselle. They say this Denot was greatly in love with Mademoiselle Agatha, and that she wouldn’t look at him. Is it true, she was so very scornful to him?”
“She was never scornful to any one,” said Marie; “but if he ever asked her for her love, I have no doubt she told him that she could not give it to him.”
“That’s just what they say; and that then he asked her more and more, and went down on his knees to her, and prayed her just as much as to look at him; and kissed her feet, and cried dreadfully; and that all she did was to turn aside her face, and bid him rise and leave her.”
“What would you have had her say, Annot, if she felt that she could not love him?”
“Oh! I’m not presuming to find fault with her, Mademoiselle; heaven forbid! Of course, if she couldn’t love him, she could do nothing but refuse him. But, heigho! it’s a very dreadful thing to think of that a nice young man like him—for I’m told that this Denot was a very nice young man—should be so bewildered by love as he has been.”
“Love couldn’t make a man a traitor,” said Marie, “nor yet a coward.”
“I don’t know, Mademoiselle, love is a very fearful thing when it doesn’t go right. Perhaps love never made you feel so angry that you’d like to eat your lover’s heart?”