Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/188

 without even the common sympathies of humanity. It is difficult in our days to conceive such a character, though they were common enough in France during the last century; but in his views for his cousin, evil as they were, he seemed at least honest—more, self-sacrificing, since she was the only creature on earth for whom he cared.

With his knowledge of her disposition, he did not conceal from himself that great difficulties attended his task. However lightly the cynical Abbé might esteem a woman's virtue, his experience taught him not to underrate the obstinacy of a woman's pride. That his cousin, in common with her family, possessed an abundance of the latter quality, he was well aware, and he played his game accordingly. It was his design to compromise her by a coup-de-main, after he had sapped her defences to the utmost by the arguments of ambition and self-interest. Like all worldly men in their dealings with women, he undervalued both her strength and her weakness—her aversion to the Regent, and her fancy for the Musketeer; this even while he made use of the latter to overcome the former sentiment. If she could be induced by any means, however fraudulent, to grant the Prince an interview at night in her own gardens, he argued, that first step would have been taken, which it is always so difficult to retract; and to bring this about, he had forged Captain George's signature to the polite note which had proved so effectual in luring the Marquise down the terrace steps, and across the velvet lawn, under the irresistible temptation of a meeting by moonlight with the man she loved. As a measure of mere politeness, connected with certain military precautions, of course!

But under such circumstances it would appear that one Musketeer ought to be company enough for one lady at a time. Cerise, viewing the performances from her window above, might have come to the conclusion, had she not been too anxious, agitated, terrified, to retain full possession of her faculties, that the arrival of a few more of these guardsmen on such a scene, at such a crisis, was conducive rather to tumult and bloodshed than appropriate conversation.

Captain George, stopping short in his eager though stealthy advance towards the white figure flitting noiselessly