“She isn’t silly, she is one of the best women-jugglers in the profession,” answered Diane, loyal and illogical as ever.
There was no resisting him on the part of poor Diane, and presently they were sitting on the bench together, Diane’s soft, cool cheek resting against the Marquis’ mustache. Presently he said:
“Now, what do you suppose I followed you here for, besides these sweet kisses? Your obstinacy has conquered at last. Will you be my wife, Diane?”
Diane gave a great gasp, and before Egmont knew what she was doing, she had slipped to the damp ground and was kneeling against him, weeping and laughing.
“Do you mean it? Do you really mean it?” she was crying.
“Of course I mean it,” said the Marquis, lifting her up once more on the bench beside him. “You are one of those women, Diane, who can make their own terms with men.”
“I will never be the least trouble to you,” said Diane, still weeping; “I never will be in your way; I will never utter a complaint. I know what it means for you, but I will efface myself. I will go to live in a hovel in the country if you like. All I ask is a little love.”
“That you shall have,” said the Marquis, kissing her red lips. “Not a little, but an immense deal. And as for living in the country, it is quite true, Diane, that you would be happier and better off living quietly and out of sight for a while, until you learn how to be a marquise. I am thirty years old, and I have no family, so there is no one to protest. The chateau of Egmont is leased, because, to tell you the truth, Diane, I am a poor man. But I have a little shooting-box an hour from Bienville where you could live very comfortably, eh, Diane? A little box of a house with a garden and lilac hedges around it, and a summer-house and some trees and fields and a little river where I often go to fish when I am off duty. Now if you were there—!”
The prospect was so dazzling to Diane that she had to close her eyes to see the splendid vision, and her lips could only whisper:
“A summer-house, a lilac hedge! Oh, glory, glory! One maid will be enough!”