'Love?' I reiterated a second time, while my heart vibrated strongly, and I perceived the fair mask beside us, who had listened to all this in silence, turn away with a gesture of ineffable disdain.
'Well, well, M. Blane, I will talk to you of this another time,' said the countess, who detected this secret displeasure in her friend or companion; 'a deep love is not necessary, if you are only adequate to a little pretty wickedness, or amiable weakness, it is quite enough here—for we do not love long in these days of ours. Believe me that his Grace of Lennox shall be obeyed, and that I will leave nothing undone to find you a suitable position in France.'
'Oh madame, a thousand thanks!' I exclaimed, remembering, with something of remorse, that I had once felt considerable disdain for the character of the patroness to whom my ducal kinsman had assigned me.
'What say you to join the Duke of Lorraine?' she asked abruptly.
'Lorraine, madame?' I stammered.
'Yes.'
'He is said to be in league with the German emperor against the King of France,' said the masked lady hurriedly.
'Well, mademoiselle—and what then?'
'Ah, madame la Comtesse, do not trepan the poor youth into a service of which he is ignorant, or into a hazardous game like that now played by France and Lorraine.'
'As you please,' replied the Countess pettishly. 'Mademoiselle Marie Louise of Lorraine, the duke's only daughter and favourite child, is said to be now in Paris, and to have won over more than twenty colonels of the French army to her father's cause.'