And trust me not at all or all in all.--TENNYSON
So extensive was the Louvre, so widely separated the different
suites of apartments, that Diane and Eustacie had not met after the
pall-mall party till they sat opposite to their several queens in
the coach driving through the woods, the elder cousin curiously
watching the eyes of the younger, so wistfully gazing at the
window, and now and then rapidly winking as though to force back a
rebellious tear.
The cousins had been bred up together in the convent at Bellaise,
and had only been separated by Diane's having been brought to court
two years sooner than Eustacie. They had always been on very
kindly, affectionate terms; Diane treating her little cousin with
the patronage of an elder sister, and greatly contributing to
shield her from the temptations of the court.
The elder cousin was so much the more handsome, brilliant, and admired, that no notion
of rivalry had crossed her mind; and Eustacie's inheritance was
regarded by her as reserved for her brother, and the means of
aggradizement an prosperity for herself and her father. She looked
upon the child as a sort of piece of property of the family, to be
guarded and watched over for her brother; and when she had first
discovered the error that the young baron was making between the
two daughters of the house, it was partly in kindness to Eustacie,
partly to carry out her father's plans, and partly from her own
pleasure in conversing with anything so candid and fresh as
Berenger, that she had maintained the delusion.
Her father believed himself to have placed Berenger so entirely in the
background, that he would hardly be at court long enough to
discover the imposition; and Diane was not devoid of a strong hope
of winning his affection and bending his will so as to induce him
to become her husband, and become a French courtier for her sake--a
wild dream, but a better castle in the air than she had ever yet
indulged in.
This arrangement was, however, disconcerted by the King's passion
for Sidney's society, which brought young Ribaumont also to court;
and at the time of the mischievous introduction by Madame
Marguerite, Diane had perceived that the mistake would soon be
found out, and that she should no longer be able to amuse herself
with the fresh-coloured, open-faced boy who was unlike all her
former acquaintance; but the magnetism that shows a woman when she
produces an effect had been experienced by her, and she had been
sure that a few efforts more would warm and mould the wax in her
fingers.