Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/198

186 "I?"

"Yes; you are blushing and are quite silent."

"I was trying," said the marquise, raising her beautiful eyes brightened with an indication of approaching anger, "I was trying to discover to what you could possibly have alluded, you who are so learned in mythological subjects, in comparing me to Danaë."

"You were trying to guess that," said Marguerite, laughing.

"Yes; do you not remember that at the convent, when we were solving our problems in arithmetic — ah! what I have to tell you is learned also, but it is my turn — do you not remember that if one of the terms were given we were to find out the other? Therefore, do you guess now?"

"I cannot conjecture what you mean."

"And yet nothing is more simple."

"You pretend that I am in love, do you not?"

"So it is said."

"Very well; it is not said, I suppose, that I am in love with an abstraction. There must surely be a name mentioned in this report."

"Certainly, a name is mentioned."

"Very well; it is not surprising, then, that I should try to guess this name, since you do not tell it me."

"My dear marquise, when I saw you blush I did not think you would have to spend much time in conjectures."

"It was the word Danaë which you used that surprised me. Danaë means a shower of gold, does it not?"

"That is to say that the Jupiter of Danaë changed himself into a shower of gold for her."

"My lover, then, he whom you assign me "

"I beg your pardon; I am your friend, and assign you no one."

"That may be; but those who are evilly disposed toward me."

"Do you wish to hear the name?"

"I have been waiting this half-hour for it."

"Well, then, you shall hear it. Do not be shocked; he is a man high in power."

"Good," said the marquise, as she clinched her hands like a patient at the approach of the knife.

"He is a very wealthy man," continued Marguerite; "the wealthiest, it may be. In a word, it is "

The marquise closed her eyes for a moment.

"It is the Duke of Buckingham," said Marguerite,