He had mounted, not without a mighty effort, his pretty Andalusian steed, called Rosidor—another name from Astrée,—an excellent beast with an easy gait and placid disposition, a little mischievous, as it was fitting that he should be in order to give his rider a chance to shine—that is to say, ready at the slightest sign with leg or hand, to roll his eyes savagely, curvet, dilate his nostrils like a wicked devil, rear to a respectable height, and, in a word, assume the airs of a bad-tempered brute.
"For all that, the best fellow in the world."
As he dismounted, the marquis ordered Clindor to lead his horse around the courtyard for a quarter of an hour, on the pretext that he was too warm to be taken to the stable at once, but in reality so that his hosts might know that he still rode that restive palfrey.
Before he entered Lauriane's presence, honest Sylvain went to the room set aside for him in his neighbor's house, to readjust his clothes, and perfume and beautify himself in the jauntiest and most refined manner.
On his side Monsieur Sciarra d'Alvimar, dressed in black velvet and satin, after the Spanish fashion, with hair cut short and a ruff of rich lace, had only to change his boots for silk hose and shoes bedecked with ribbons, to show himself at his best.
Although his sedate costume, then considered old-fashioned in France, was better suited to Bois-Doré's age than his own, it gave him an indefinable air of a diplomat and a priest at once, which emphasized the more strongly his extraordinarily well-preserved youth and the self-assured refinement of his person.
It seemed that old De Beuvre had anticipated a day of offers of marriage; for he had made himself less like a Huguenot, that is to say less austere in his dress than usual, and, deeming his daughter's dress too simple, he had urged her to don a handsomer one. So she made herself as fine as the widow's weeds, which she was in duty bound to wear until she married again, would permit. In those days custom was not to be trifled with.
She arrayed herself in white taffeta, with a raised skirt over an underskirt of grayish white, called rye bread color. She put on a lace neckband and wristbands, and as the widow's hood—Mary Stuart's little cap—relieved her from the necessity of conforming to the fashion of wearing the ugly powdered wigs which were then in vogue, she was able to show her lovely fair hair brushed back in a wavy mass which left her beautiful forehead bare and framed her finely-veined temples.
In order not to seem too provincial, she sprinkled her hair with Cyprus powder, which made her more than ever like a child. Although the two suitors had severally determined to be agreeable, they were somewhat embarrassed during the dinner, as if they had conceived some suspicion that they were rivals.
Indeed, Bellinde had repeated to Monsieur Poulain's housekeeper the conversation she had overheard. The housekeeper had told the rector, who had put D'Alvimar on his guard by a note thus conceived: