The Regent shook his head gravely. It was a subject of which he had diligently studied both theory and practice, yet found he knew little more about it than when he began.
“They are all so different,” he complained, peevishly, “and yet all so alike in their utter insensibility to reason, their perverted wilfulness in looking on impossibilities as accomplished facts. There is Madame de Sabran wants me to make her a duchess of France! ‘How can I make you a duchess of France, madame?’ said I. ‘Would you have your “mastiff,” as you call him, created a duke for your services?’ ‘He would make a better than so and so, and so and so,’ she answered, as coolly as possible, naming half-a-dozen, who it must be confessed are not one bit more respectable! That is another thing about the woman, she always contrives to have a distorted shadow of reason, like a stick in the water, on her side. It was only the other day I made him one of my chamberlains, and now she declares he ought to be given a step of rank to uphold the dignity of the office. How can you reason with such a woman as that?”
“Waste of time, Highness!” answered Malletort, composedly. “They are born not to be instructed, but admired!”
“I used to admire her more than I do now,” observed the Regent, thoughtfully. “Still the woman is amusing and witty; there is no denying it. Besides, she speaks her mind freely, and however violent the passions she puts herself in, they are over in five minutes. But what am I to do with the other? I give you the honour of a Bourbon, my friend, she has not uttered a syllable beyond ‘Yes, monsieur,’ ‘No, monsieur,’ since yesterday afternoon, when she dropped at once from the height of good-humour into a fit of impenetrable sulks.”
“Without the slightest cause, of course!” observed the Abbé.
“Without the slightest cause,” repeated the Prince, “at least that I could discover. There was indeed a slight difficulty about some flowers. I had promised her a bouquet of stephanotis for the masked ball to-night. It is rare—its smell is to me overpowering, but it is her favourite perfume. Well, my people scoured the country for half-a-dozen leagues round Paris, and none was to be procured. With you or me, Abbé, the conclusion would seem natural enough, that if the stephanotis has not yet bloomed, the stephanotis cannot yet be in flower. But to a woman—bah—such an argument is no reason at all! It is quite possible she may even refuse to accompany me to the ball to-night!”
Malletort did not think so, and his hopes, just now so buoyant, lost nothing by a suggestion which only betrayed his patron’s ignorance of the female mind.
“Ah, Highness,” he exclaimed, throwing a gleam of sympathy into his eyes, which contrasted much with their usual expression, “how completely is your condescension misjudged! how utterly your kind heart thrown away! You say truly, women are so different. These think of their own aggrandisement even while they bask in your affection. Others here at Court would throw themselves body and soul at your feet were you to-morrow changed into a simple page from Duke of Orleans and Master of France!”
“How?” exclaimed the Regent, unable to conceal that his vanity was gratified. “Do you speak from your own knowledge? Are you laughing at me? How can you possibly have found this out?”