"It might be more profitable than——"
"Than thinking of La Vallière and poor Bragelonne, and all the gay glories of the exiled Bourbons?" laughed Nina. "Very likely; but romance is more to my taste than granite. You would never have killed yourself, like Bragelonne, for the beaux yeux of Louise de la Beaume-sur-Blanc, would you?"
"I trust," said Eusebius, stiffly, "that I should have had a deeper sense of the important responsibilities of the gift of life than to throw it away because a silly girl preferred another."
"You are very impolitic," said Ernest, with a satirical smile. "No lady could feel remorse at forsaking you, if you could get over it so easily."
"He would get over it easily," laughed Nina. "You would call her Delilah, and all the Scripture bad names, order Mr. Ruskin's new work, turn your desires to a deanship, marry some bishop's daughter with high ecclesiastical interest, and console yourself in the bosom of your Mother Church—eh, Mr. Ruskinstone?"
"You are cruelly unjust," sighed Eusebius. "You little know——"
"The charms of architecture? No; and I never shall," answered his tormentor, humming the "Queen of the Roses," and waltzing down the forest glade, where they were walking. "How severe you look!" she said as she waltzed back. "Is that wrong, too? Miriam danced before the ark and Jephtha's daughter."
The Warden appeared not to hear. Certainly his mode of courtship was singular.
"Ernest," he said, turning to his cousin as the rest of the party came up, "I had no idea your sister was in Paris. I have not seen her since she was fourteen. I should not have known her in the least."
"Margaret is in India with her husband," answered Vaughan. "What are you dreaming of? Where have you seen her?"