Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/346

 up her daughter, that she should be ready to give up her life rather than endanger his happiness? She winced, she quivered with pain and shame because of the feelings her own question called up. What was he to her? The noblest, the dearest, the bravest, the best-beloved; the realisation of her girl's dreams, of her woman's passions, the type of all that she had ever honoured and admired and longed for to make her happiness complete! She remembered so well the boy's gentle brow, the frank kind eyes that smiled and danced with delight to be noticed by her, a young and beautiful widow, flattered and coveted of all the Great King's Court. She recalled, as if it were but yesterday, the stag-hunt at Fontainebleau; the manly figure and the daring horsemanship of the Grey Musketeer; her own mad joy in that wild gallop, and the strange keen zest life seemed to have acquired when she rode home through those sleeping woods, under the dusky purple of that soft autumnal night. How she used to watch for him afterwards, amidst all the turmoil of feasts and pleasures that constituted the routine of the new Court. How well she knew his place of ceremony, his turn of duty, and loved the very sentries at the palace-gate for his sake. Often had she longed to hint by a look, a gesture, the flirt of a fan, the dropping of a flower, that he had not far to seek for one who would care for him as he deserved; but even the Marquise shrank, and feared, and hesitated, woman-like, where she really loved. Then came that ever-memorable night at the Masked Ball, when she cried out aloud, in her longing and her loneliness, and never knew afterwards whether she was glad or sorry for what she had done.

It was soon to be over then, for ere a few more days had elapsed the Regent ventured on his shamless outrage at the Hôtel Montmirail, and lo! in the height of her indignation and her need, who should drop down, as it seemed, from the skies, to be her champion, but the man of all others whom most she could have loved and trusted in the world!

Since then, had she not thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night, dwelling on his image with a fond persistency none the less cherished because sad and desponding—content, if better might not be, to worship it in