No sweeter could befall,
While love the end was and the cause—
God knows what changed it all!
“A kiss too much, too full a sigh—
The vessel brimméd o’er;
And the creaking wain of Destiny
Moved onwards as before.”
And so he lingered on amidst the golden ruins of his paradise, wondering, as if his brain were stupefied, over what he had done to bring it thus in a moment about his ears.
He was not permitted to wonder long. Whether it were that she soon realised the hollowness of his attentions to herself; or the real peril of his continued presence in the neighbourhood; or, which is most probable, that she was wearied with the whole business, the marquise took steps to make his further stay in the palace impossible to him. Once resolved, she went about the business after her uncompromising fashion. She opened upon him one night without relevance or preface:
“Like Cupid, monsieur, you are everyone’s match-maker, it seems, and nobody’s gallant. And yet sometimes I wonder.”