MAN. She has Spanish blood in her veins too. She is your niece and my cousin.
MARQ. She has no sympathy for Ferdinand.
MAN. Because she has been taught to distrust him. Will Captain Durand’s company remain here or escort us to Valencay.
MARQ. I do not know.
MAN. It is incredible that you let her speak to that man.
MARQ. He is not a lunatic.
MAN. He is worse: he is a poseur. You know very well that a girl’s admiration is always captured by such a tale of heroism as he has been at pains to have circulated.
MARQ. What heroism?
MAN. An absurd story that Napoleon sent him with a message to the Empress; that five or six rowdy Spaniards, thinking to make a grand coup, and under the impression that they were military instructions, waylaid him and demanded the papers upon him.