‘I accept the title,’ replied Monsieur de Châtelard, ‘but deprecate it as prematurely bestowed.’
‘Not so, my friend,’ says the Italian; ‘but if I know anything of women, there may be this night a very pretty mating—as of turtles in March. A word in your ear. Her Majesty has retired. So early! cry you? Even so. And why? Ah, but you shall ask me nothing more. To-morrow I shall not even inquire how you do. Your face will proclaim you.’
Monsieur de Châtelard embraced his friend. ‘Be sure of my remembrance, immortal Italian.’
‘I am perfectly sure of it,’ answered Signior Davy; and the moment after shrugged him out of his mind. This is what your politician should always do: remember a friend just so long as he is like to be useful.
He never had speech with him again. The miserable young man, detected in a moment in filthy intention, perhaps washed out the stain by a certain dignity of carriage, whose difficulty alone may have made it noble. This fool’s Queen—his peascod, melting beauty of a few weeks since—was certainly a splendour to behold, though the eyes that looked on her were dying eyes. A white splendour of chastity, moon-chilled, sharp as a sleet-storm on a frozen moor,—she had burned him before—now she struck ice into his very marrow. The caught thief, knowing his fate, admired while he dared this Queen of Snow and the North. For dare her he did.
‘What have you to say, twice a dog?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
‘Judge yourself. Lay your soiled hands upon yourself.’
‘Kill me, madam.’
‘Never! But you shall die.’