“Thank you, Linden; you shall have my good word with La Meronville for that: mais allons.”
Mademoiselle de la Meronville, as she pointedly entitled herself, was one of those charming adventuresses, who, making the most of a good education and a prepossessing person, a delicate turn for letter-writing, and a lively vein of conversation, came to England for a year or two, as Spaniards were wont to go to Mexico, and who return to their native country with a profound contempt for the barbarians whom they have so egregiously despoiled. Mademoiselle de la Meronville was small, beautifully formed, had the prettiest hands and feet in the world, and laughed musically. By the by, how difficult it is to laugh, or even to smile, at once naturally and gracefully! It is one of Steele’s finest touches of character, where he says of Will Honeycombe, “He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily.”
In a word, the pretty Frenchwoman was precisely formed to turn the head of a man like Lord Borodaile, who loved to be courted and who required to be amused. Mademoiselle de la Meronville received Clarence with a great deal of grace, and a little reserve, the first chiefly natural, the last wholly artificial.
“Well,” said the duke (in French), “you have not told me who are to be of your party this evening,—Borodaile, I suppose, of course?”
“No, he cannot come to-night.”
“Ah, quel malheur! then the hock will not be iced enough: Borodaile’s looks are the best wine-coolers in the world.”
“Fie!” cried La Meronville, glancing towards Clarence, “I cannot endure your malevolence; wit makes you very bitter.”
“And that is exactly the reason why La belle Meronville loves me so: nothing is so sweet to one person as bitterness upon another; it is human nature and French nature (which is a very different thing) into the bargain.”
“Bah! my Lord Duke, you judge of others by yourself.”
“To be sure I do,” cried the duke; “and that is the best way of forming a right judgment. Ah! what a foot, that little figurante has; you don’t admire her, Linden?”