“You will take good care of yourself, my niece; but do not require of me that I grow young to please the new generation.”
“What is my brother discussing?” demanded the marchioness, who, until then occupied with her game, had taken no part in the conversation.
“My uncle,” said a young officer, who had entered without saying a word, and was seated near the duke, “my uncle is preaching a crusade against music. He has declared war against the andante, proscribed the moderato, and gives no quarter to allegro.”
The new speaker was of small form, but elegant, well proportioned, of a distinguished tournure, and a handsome face, too handsome, perhaps, for a man.
“Dear Raphael!” cried the duke, embracing the officer, who was his relation and his friend.
“And I,” added the young officer, affectionately pressing the hand of the duke, “I who would have broken my arms and legs to spare you the painful hours you have passed! But we were speaking of the opera, and I would not be impious towards the melodrama.”
“Well thought of,” said the duke; “you had better relate to me what has passed in my absence. What do they say?”
“That my cousin, the Countess d’Algar,” said Raphael, “is the pearl of women.”
“I asked you what was new,” replied the duke, “and not what everybody knows.”
“My lord duke,” continued Raphael, “Solomon has said, and many other wise men—I am of the number—that there is nothing new under the azure vault of heaven.”