The Mysteries of Udolpho

'I have heard Signor Montoni say,' rejoined Cavigni, 'that he never knew

but one woman who deserved it.'

'Well!' exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of

unutterable complacency, 'and who could she be?' '

O!' replied Cavigni, 'it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly

there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit to

deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the case

entirely.' He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than before for

her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.

'Well, signor!' said Madame Cheron, 'I protest you are a Frenchman; I

never heard a foreigner say any thing half so gallant as that!'

'True, madam,' said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with a

low bow, 'but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost, but

for the ingenuity that discovered the application.'

Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical

sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on

her account. 'O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,' said her aunt, 'I

protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to me.'

The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk. 'Pray, who

is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?' asked Madame

Cheron, with an air of chagrin, 'I have not seen him once.'

'He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Riviere,'

replied Cavigni, 'which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment,

or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you,

madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say. But, I know not how it

is--your conversation is so fascinating--that it can charm even memory,

I think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend's apology

before.' 'The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,' said

Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni's neglect,

than flattered by Cavigni's compliment. Her manner, at this moment, and

Cavigni's late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in Emily's mind,

which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to confirm it,

appeared preposterous. She thought she perceived, that Montoni was

paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only accepted

them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect on his

part.--That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second husband was

ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but that Montoni,

with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should make a choice

of Madame Cheron--appeared most wonderful. Her thoughts, however, did

not dwell long on the subject; nearer interests pressed upon them;

Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing with a gay and

beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind. As she passed along

the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing and half hoping

that he might appear in the crowd; and the disappointment she felt on

not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped more than she had feared.