"Why," replied the old man, "he is the first man under sixty I ever heard her even civil to in my life. There is Monsieur le Duc there; you know he's out of the question, because he's past the age."
The Duc de Melcourt looked a little mortified, and said, "Sir, you are mistaken; and at all events she never said any thing civil to you, though you are so much past the age."
"I never asked her," replied the other.
"But there is the Chevalier d'Evran," replied one of the younger men, "she has said three or four civil things to him this very night:--I heard her."
"As much bitter as sweet in them," replied the old man; "but, at all events, she does not love him."
"She loves me more than you know," said the Chevalier quietly; and turning on his heel he went to join a gay party on the opposite side of the room, and perversely paid devoted attention to a fair lady whom he cared nothing about, and to whom the morals of any other court would have required him to pay no attentions but those of ordinary civility.
CHAPTER VII.
[THE GROWTH OF LOVE.]
The entertainment was kept up late; many of the guests scarcely departed before daylight; those who were invited to remain the night at the governor's house, retired when they thought fit; and every one acknowledged that this was the most splendid and the most agreeable fête that had been given in Poitiers for many years. What were the feelings, however, of the Count de Morseiul as, at an hour certainly not later than one in the morning, he sought his own apartments? We must not afford those feelings much space; and we will only record what he saw before he left the hall, leaving the mind of the reader to supply the rest.
On leading back Clémence de Marly to her seat, he had entered into conversation for a moment with some persons whom he knew; and when he turned towards her again, he saw not only that she was surrounded by almost all those who had been about her before, but that a number of young cavaliers freshly arrived had swelled her train, and that her demeanour was precisely the same as that which had, at his first entrance, removed her from the high place in which his imagination had enthroned her. Every flattery seemed to be received as merely her due--every attention but as a tribute that she had a right to command. On some of her slaves she smiled more graciously than on others, but certainly was not without giving that encouragement to many which may be afforded by saucy harshness as much as by attention and condescension. She did not, indeed, dance frequently[[1]]; that was a favour reserved for few; but the whole of the rest of her conduct displeased Albert of Morseiul; and he was grieved--very much grieved--to feel that it had power to give him pain.