"For yourself, very likely."
"Fancy the great moat below filled with water and sheeted with lilies, and the drawbridge lowered, and a company of knights riding into the gates. Within, in one of those vaulted, quaintly timbered rooms, the châtelaine stands ready to receive them, with her women, her chaplain, her physician, and her little page. They come clanking up the staircase, with ringing swords, sweeping the ground with their plumes. They are all brave and splendid and fierce, but one of them far more than the rest. They each bend a knee to the lady—"
"But he bends two," cried Coquelin. "They wander apart into one of those deep embrasures and spin the threads of perfect love. Ah, I could fancy a sweet life, in those days, mademoiselle, if I could only fancy myself a knight!"
"And you can't," said the young girl, gravely, looking at him.
"It's an idle game; it's not worth trying."
"Apparently then, you're a cynic; you have an equally small opinion of the past and the present."
"No; you do me injustice."
"But you say that life is hard."
"I speak not for myself, but for others; for my brothers and sisters and kinsmen in all degrees; for the great mass of petits gens of my own class."
"Dear me, M. Coquelin, while you're about it, you can speak for others still; for poor portionless girls, for instance."