"And you will not emerge from your retreat?"
"Certainly not, Madame; it is far more amusing to remain behind the scenes. One hears all, laughs at one's ease, and is not troubled with saying any thing."
It struck two. Monsieur de Menneval was announced. His Majesty remained snug, and shammed dead.
III.
Monsieur de Menneval was, at all points, a cavalier who yielded nothing to his rival, Monsieur de Beaugency. He was fair. He had a blue eye, a broad forehead, a mouth that wore a dreamy expression, and that somewhat pensive air which became so well the Troubadours of France in the olden time.
We cannot say whether Monsieur de Menneval had perpetrated verse; but he loved the poets, the arts, the quiet of the fields, the sunsets, the rosy dawn, the breeze sighing through the foliage, the low and mysterious tones of a harp, sounding at eve from the light bark shooting over the blue waters of the Loire—all things in short that harmonize with that melodious concert of the heart, which passes by the name of love.
He was timid, but he passionately loved the beautiful widow; and his dearest dream was of passing his whole life at her feet, in well chosen retirement, far from those envious lookers-on who are ever ready to fling their sarcasms on quiet happiness, and who dissemble their envy under cloak of a philosophic scepticism.
He trembled, as he entered the Marchioness's boudoir. He remained standing before her, and blushed as he kissed her hand. At length, encouraged by a smile, emboldened by the solemnity of this coveted interview, he spoke to her of his love, with a poetic simplicity and an unpremeditated warmth of heart—the genuine enthusiasm of a priest, who has faith in the object of his adoration.
And as he spoke, the Marchioness sighed, and said within herself:
"He is right. Love is happiness. Love is to be two indeed, but one at the same time; and to be free from those importunate intermeddlers, the indifference or the mocking attention of the world."