“It was the Infanta?”
“It was the Infanta.”
* * * * * * *
“Tiretta, my dear friend, tell me exactly what were her words?”
“She desired, sir, to be spared the impertinences of strangers; and when I answered with the respectful gallantry of my mission, she retorted as only a woman can retort with impunity.”
“A woman! Yet the vision of that child! I am sorry for you, Tiretta—and I am sorry for myself.”
“You have need to be.”
“Why? Did she know me for whom I was?”
“I can answer for the marquise; I cannot answer for her. Likely not; and, if likely, happily not; else I think you would find her more woman than child if you came to woo. Be content for that, if it pleases you. I do not fancy, from what I noticed, that the marquise will enlighten her. You can be sorry, provisionally, nevertheless.”
The young archduke gloomed, and was silent for a while. It was not that he resented the other’s freedom. Tiretta was constituted his privileged favourite for the time being, and might speak his mind liberally on most matters. It was rather, perhaps, that he cogitated the invidious position of princes, who, having austere far-seeing mothers to arrange matches for them, must accommodate themselves at bidding to double leading-strings, without being given a choice as to the partner with whom they were destined to run in couple. It made no difference that inclination in himself might jump with another’s policy. He would have wished to be free to woo in the sense that Tiretta, being of the small and independent, meant it. He did not fear the issue; he only coveted the free-will which would have lent a glamour to the pursuit. What if, after all, he were to find himself bound to one predisposed against him? He wished that she knew him, and knew him better; so, for the time at least, had that rebellious vision wrought upon his emotions. Presently, with a sigh, he looked up.