Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/114

 What chance then had an honest, conceited, thick-headed old soldier, with nothing of the snake about him but his glistening outside, and labouring under the further disadvantage of being furiously in earnest, against such a proficient as the Marquise—a coquette of a dozen years' standing, rejoicing in battle, accustomed to triumph, witty, scornful, pitiless, and to-day, for the first time, doubtful of her prowess, and dissatisfied with herself?

She had never looked better in her life; the flushed cheeks, the brilliant eyes, the simple white dress, with its scarlet breast-knots, these combined to constitute a very seductive whole, and one that, had there been a mirror in which she could see it reflected, might have gone far to strengthen the Abbé's arguments, and to convince her that his schemes, aspiring though they seemed, were founded on a knowledge of human nature, experience, and common sense. Neither, I imagine, does a woman ever believe in her heart that any destiny can be quite beyond her reach. Though fortune may offer man something more than his share of goods and tangible possessions on this material earth, nature has conferred on woman the illimitable inheritance of the possible; and no beggar maiden is so lowly but that she may dream of King Cophetua and his crown-*matrimonial laid at her shoeless feet.

To see the chance, vague, yet by no means unreasonable, of becoming Queen of France looming in the future—to entertain a preference, vague, yet by no means doubtful, for a handsome captain of Grey Musketeers—and to be made honourable love to at a little past thirty by a man and a marshal a little past sixty—was not all this enough to impart a yet deeper lustre to the glowing cheeks and the bright eyes, to bid the scarlet breast-knots heave and quiver over that warm, wilful, and impassioned heart?

It was not a fair fight; far from it. It was Goliath against David, and David, moreover, with neither stone nor sling, nor ruddy countenance, nor the mettle of untried courage, nor youthful confidence in his cause.

He came up boldly, however, when he confronted his enemy, and kissed her hand with a ponderous compliment to her good looks, which she cut short rudely enough.

Then he took his hat from the floor, and began to smooth