'Mon Dieu, my boy, what a lover you will make! Who among the Garde du Corps Ecossais will be like you?'
As I had now come to push my fortune in France and in Paris, that place of vague and doubtful morality, I had—fortunately for myself—at memory all the dialogues, proverbs, and 'metrical graces' of the French Schoole Maister, published at Edinburgh in 1632; and drew my ideas of continental morals from that small thick volume the Histoire de Palmerin d'Olive, Fils du Roy Florendos, translated from Castilian into French by Jean Maugin, Paris, par Galliot du Pre, 1573: thus I was never without a ready answer whenever the Countess threw down the glove. Moreover, I was young, and knew little of the world; thus her great beauty and brilliance of manner really dazzled me; and when I bent my eyes upon her, I am ashamed to say, that it was, perhaps, with more of an imploring expression than ever filled them when I attempted to pray; but I soon forgot to do even that in Paris.
After some conversation of a half-bantering and half-complimentary nature, with a strong tinge of love-making running through it all, I begged that she would give me a little relic to wear, as a remembrance of one who had been so kind to me. Taking from the drawer of a buhl table a charming miniature of herself, set in gold, she threw its ribbon round my neck, saying in a whisper close to my ear, very close indeed,—
'Wear this for my sake—it is the work of Nicholas Poussin, and the gift of a king. See his initial L, and a crown in diamonds, are on the back. It may prove a talisman should you ever get into trouble; for, alas! the court of France is surrounded by pitfalls and snares, by lures and assassinations.'
'Ah, madame, that I might always be near you.'
'Why that wish?'
'Forgive me,' said I, kissing the miniature, and placing it in my breast; 'but I feel myself attracted towards you by an irresistible fatality, like—'
'Like what, mon bien amie?'
'Like a poor moth towards the light, which is to consume and destroy it!' said I, with more real pathos and feeling than the object of this emotion merited.
'A terrible simile! then, M. Arthur, you love me wholly now?'