'I have heard my mother speak of it far too often to forget it,'

said Berenger, glowing again for her who could speak of that

occasion without a blush.

'You wish to gloss over your first inconstancy, sir,' she said,

archly; but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney's

coming to tell him that the Ambassador was ready to return home.

He took leave with an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much

that he desired to be commended to his cousin Diane, whom he had

not seen.

'To Diane?' said the lady, inquiringly.

'To Mademoiselle Diane de Ribaumont,' he corrected himself, ashamed

of his English rusticity. 'I beg pardon if I spoke too familiarly

of her.'

'She should be flattered by M. le Baron's slightest recollection,'

said the lady, with an ironical tone that there was no time to

analyze, and with a mutual gesture of courtesy he followed Sidney

to where Sir Francis awaited them.

'Well, what think you of the French court?' asked Sidney, so soon

as the young men were in private.

'I only know that you may bless your good fortune that you stand in

no danger from a wife from thence.'

'Ha!' cried Sidney, laughing, 'you found your lawful owner. Why

did you not present me?'

'I was ashamed of her bold visage.'

'What!--was she the beauteous demoiselle I found you gallanting,'

said Philip Sidney, a good deal entertained, 'who was gazing at you

with such visible admiration in her languishing black eyes?'

'The foul fiend seize their impudence!'

'Fie! for shame! thus to speak of your own wife,' said the

mischievous Sidney, 'and the fairest----'

'Go to, Sidney. Were she fairer than Venus, with a kingdom to her

dower, I would none of a woman without a blush.'

'What, in converse with her wedded husband,' said Sidney. 'Were

not that over-shamefastness?'

'Nay, now, Sidney, in good sooth give me your opinion. Should she

set her fancy on me, even in this hour, am I bound in honour to

hold by this accursed wedlock--lock, as it may well be called?'

'I know no remedy,' said Sidney, gravely, 'save the two enchanted

founts of love and hate. They cannot be far away, since it was at

the siege of Paris that Rinaldo and Orlando drank thereof.'

Another question that Berenger would fain have asked Sidney, but

could not for very shame and dread of mockery, was, whether he

himself were so dangerously handsome as the lady had given him to

understand. With a sense of shame, he caught up the little mirror

in his casket, and could not but allow to himself that the features

he there saw were symmetrical--the eyes azure, the complexion of a

delicate fairness, such as he had not seen equaled, except in those

splendid Lorraine princes; nor could he judge of the further effect

of his open-faced frank simplicity and sweetness of expression--

contemptible, perhaps, to the astute, but most winning to the

world-weary. He shook his head at the fair reflection, smiled as

he saw the colour rising at his own sensation of being a fool, and

then threw it aside, vexed with himself for being unable not to

feel attracted by the first woman who had shown herself struck by

his personal graces, and yet aware that this was the very thing he

had been warned against, and determined to make all the resistance

in his power to a creature whose very beauty and enchantment gave

him a sense of discomfort.




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