'Yes—exceedingly so!'
'You are weary of me, dearest Nicola,' said I, attempting to take her whip hand.
'Weary of your conversation, at least,' said she, giving a second switch over the fingers; 'and unless you can find a more entertaining subject than the beauty, wit, et cetera, of the French king's avowed mistress, please to speak no more.'
I began to fear that I had gone too far; but whence all this pique? Did this charming enigma—this beautiful girl—really love me, and feel her little heart swell at the thought of rivalry? I could neither answer this question, nor account for the strange timidity with which her manner infected me.
'Pardon me, mademoiselle,' said I, urging Dagobert close to her side, and venturing to kiss her hand—and this time the switch was not raised—'I will not say more until you address me.'
'Then, you shall be silent long enough, I promise you.'
She was evidently in a furious pet; thus we rode in silence into Chalons, and were then one hundred and three miles from Paris. I stole a glance from time to time at Nicola, and to my great perplexity perceived that she was in tears; but amid the bustle of Chalons, the examination of our papers by the suspicious guard at the gate, and my anxiety to find, in a strange city, a suitable hotel, I could not refer to our past and peculiar conversation, or to the delightful inferences I drew from it.
Chalons lies between two spacious meadows on the river Marne, which divides it into three parts—the town, the isle, and suburb; and high over all its mansions towered the spire of St. Stephen. The streets were wide and bordered by trees; the ramparts were strong; the ditches deep and broad. Sir Andrew Gray, of Broxmouth in Lothian, a veteran Scottish soldier of fortune, was governor, and his garrison consisted of two fine battalions of the regiment de Normandie.