Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/97

 after another, with the proverbial fastidiousness that, looking for a perfectly straight stick, traverses the wood from end to end in vain. The first man was too young, the second too old, a third too clever, a fourth too stupid. Count Point d'Appui had been hawked at by all the beauties in Paris, and owned half Picardy; but she was afraid of him. No, she could not trust him with her Cerise. He was worn out, debauched, one of the roués, and worse than the Regent! Then there was the Marquis de la Force Manquée, he would have been the very thing, but he had sustained a paralytic stroke. Ah! she knew it. The family might hush it up, talk of a fall in hunting, a shock to the system, a cold bath after exercise, but Fagon had told her what it was. The late king's physician should understand such matters, and she was not to be deceived! To be sure, there was still the Duc de Beaublafard left—noble rank, tolerable possessions, easy temper, and a taste for the fine arts. She wavered a long time, but decided against him at last. "It is a pity!" said the Marquise, in a half-whisper, shaking her head, and gazing thoughtfully at Pierrot; "a thousand pities! but I dare not risk it. He is too good-looking—even for a lover—decidedly for a husband!"

It was strange that, with her knowledge of human nature, her experience, by observation at least, of human passions, she should so little have considered that person's inclinations who ought to have been first consulted in such a matter. She never seemed to contemplate for an instant that Cerise herself might shrink from the character of the Count, appeal against becoming sick-nurse to the Marquis, or incline to the excessive and objectionable beauty of the Duke. It seemed natural the girl should accept her mother's choice just as that mother had herself accepted, without even seeing, the chivalrous old Montmirail whom she had so cherished and respected, whose snuff-box stood there under glass on her writing-table, and for whom, though he had been dead more years than she liked to count, she sometimes felt as if she could weep even now.

Such a train of reflection gradually brought the Marquise to her own position in life, and a calculation of the advantages and disadvantages attendant on marriage as regarded