'She actually looks after her own husband.'
'But, madame,' said I, 'in this catalogue of political beauties you forget yourself. You govern—'
'The King!' she replied with a triumphant smile that made her seem irresistibly beautiful; but the reply was whispered in my ear so closely that I started with confusion.
'So said the Duke of Lennox, adding, "she has but to smile, and the commander of the Scots will give you a pair of colours at once."'
'There M. le Duc de Lennox overrated my influence, for old M. de la Ferte Imbault, who has just been appointed Colonel-General des Ecossais, is a venerable military bear, who served under Henri Champernon and the Marshal de Tavannes, and is so old that 'tis said he really remembers the last tournament in the Place de Carrousel; so on him my smiles would be lavished in vain. Yet, take courage—I am your friend, and you have this night done me a greater service than you are aware of. Take some more wine—you still look pale,' said she, passing her soft warm hand caressingly over my cheek and forehead; 'but now tell me—and pray excuse the question—have you ever—'
'What, madame?'
'Been in love?'
The blood mounted to my temples as I almost quailed under the keen eye of the beautiful questioner, and felt my heart beat strongly—almost wildly, though she was my senior by at least fifteen years.
'In love—no, madame; but why that question?'
'Because to be successful now, in France, you must study the art, or rather theory of love as assiduously as that of war. You must learn to laugh at everything—to blush at nothing, and to fight with every man who affronts you; but pardon me, I am forgetting the proverb—fier comme un Ecossais! Among us in Paris, an assignation and a campaign are nearly of equal importance; and love sheds its divine halo over everything. As Cervantes says, a soldier without a mistress is like a ship without a rudder, or a pilot without his compass. Thus M. de Chatillon is so enamoured of the lovely Mademoiselle le Guerchi that he wears one of her silk garters round his right arm in battle; and should you fall in love with me, I will give you one of mine.'