"Not in the least," answered the Count, "I am quite satisfied. I was so before, and am so still, and shall be so if you resolutely maintain your mystery, concluding that you have some good reason for doing so."
"Oh no," answered the Chevalier, "I never had a good reason for any thing I did in my life: I make a point of never having one; and the very insinuation of such a thing will make me unravel the whole matter at once, and show you that there is no mystery at all in the matter. You may have heard, perchance, that the Duc de Rouvré, who, by the way, is just appointed governor of the province, has a certain property with a certain château, called Ruffigny, which----"
"Which marches with my own," exclaimed the Count.
"Exactly what I was going to say," rejoined the Chevalier; "a certain property, called Ruffigny, which marches with your own, and a château thereupon some five leagues hence. Now, the excellent Duke, being an old friend, and distant relation indeed, of my family, it is scarcely possible, with common decency, for me to be more than ten years at a time without visiting him; and accordingly, about ten years ago, I being then a sprightly youth, shortly about to fit on my first arms, came down and spent the space of about a month in that very château of Ruffigny, and the Duke brought me over here to dine with your father, and hunt the wild boar in the woods behind St. Anne."
"It is very odd," said the Count, "I have no recollection of it."
"How should you?" demanded his friend, "as you were then gone upon your first campaign, under Duras, upon the Rhine. It was not, in all probability, worth your father's while to write you word that a young scapegrace had been brought to dine with him, and had run his couteau de chasse up to the hilt in the boar's gullet."
"Oh, I now remember," exclaimed the Count; "I heard of that, but I forgot the name. Have you not been here since then?"
"Not I," replied the Chevalier. "The Duke asked me, indeed, to return the following year; but something prevented him from returning himself, and I believe he has never come back to Ruffigny since. A man who has so many castles as he has cannot favour any one of them above once in six or seven years or so."
"He is coming down now, however," replied the Count; "for, of course, the affairs of his government must bring him here, if it be but to hold the states."
"Ay, but he does not come to Ruffigny," replied the Chevalier. "He goes to Poitiers. I know all about his movements; and I'll tell you what, Morseiul: take care how you go to visit him at Poitiers, for you might chance not to come back unscathed."
"How so?" demanded the Count, turning sharply as if with some surprise. "Is there any thing new against us poor Huguenots?"
"Poo, I spoke not of that," replied the Chevalier. "You sectarians seem to have a sort of hereditary feeling of martyrdom in you, as if your chief ancestor had been St. Bartholomew himself, and the saint, being skinned alive, had given the world a skinless posterity, which makes them all feel alarmed lest any one should touch them."
"It is an ominous name, St. Bartholomew, you must acknowledge to the ears of a Huguenot," replied the Count. "But what is it I have to fear, if not that, Louis?"
"What is it you have to fear!" rejoined the Chevalier. "Why, a pair of the brightest eyes in all France--I believe I might say in all Europe."
The Count shook his head with a smile.
"Well then," continued the Chevalier, "a pair of lips that look like twin roses; eyebrows that give a meaning to every lustrous look of the eyes; a hand small, white, and delicate, with fingers tapering and rounded like those with which the Venus of the Greeks gathers around her timid form the unwilling drapery; a foot such as no sandle-shod goddess of the golden age could match: and a form which would have left the sculptor nothing to seek in other beauties but herself."
The Count laughed aloud. "I am quite safe," he said, "quite safe, Louis, quite safe. I have nothing on earth to fear."
"Indeed!" exclaimed his companion, in the same gay tone. "Pray, what panoply of proof do you possess sufficient to resist such arms as these when brought against you?"
"Mine is twofold," answered the Count. "In the first place, your own enthusiasm cannot be misunderstood, and, of course, I do not become the rival of my friend. Our great hero, Condé, has set all soldiers a better example."
"What then, do you intend to follow his example in regard to the Chatillon?" demanded the Chevalier; "to yield me the lady, and as soon as I am comfortably killed off, make love to my widow? But no, no, Albert, I stand not in your way; there are other attractions for me, I tell you fairly! Even if it were not so, let every man in love, as in war, do the best for himself. But, at all events, I tell you take care of yourself if you go to Poitiers, unless, indeed, you have some better armour than the thought of rivalry with me."
"I must go to Poitiers of course," replied the Count, "when the governor comes down; but yet I shall go without fear, as I think you might by this time know. Have you not seen me amongst the fairest, and the gayest, and the sweetest of this world's daughters, and yet I do not think in all the catalogue you could find one cabalistic name sufficiently powerful to conjure up a sigh from my lips."
"Why, to say the truth," replied the Chevalier, "I have often thought you as cold as a cannon ball before it is fired; but then, my dear Count, all that time you have had something else to do, something to excite, to interest, and to engross you. But now the stir and bustle of the camp is over,--the march, the countermarch, the advance, the retreat is done,--the fierce excitement of the battle-field does not bring forth all the energies of a fiery heart,--the trumpet no longer calls you from the ear of the fair one, before the whispered tale of love be well begun. In this piping time of peace, why, man, you have nothing for it but to make love, or die of melancholy. If you have a charm, let us hear what it is!"
"Oh, I am no man of mysteries," replied the Count, "and my tale is very soon told. It is just five years ago--I was at that time in the heyday of all sorts of passions, in love, I believe, with every thing in woman's form that came in my way,--when, after spending the winter in Paris, I came down here to take leave of my father before joining the army in Flanders. It seemed as if he felt that we were parting for the last time, for he gave me many a caution, and many a warning regarding the woman that I might choose for my wife. He exacted no promise indeed, nor gave his counsels the shape of a command; but, amongst other injunctions, which I would most unwillingly violate, he strongly advised me never to wed any one of a different religious creed from myself. About the same time, however, a little incident occurred, which fancy worked up so strongly as to have had an effect upon my whole after feelings. You know the deep and bowery lanes and roads about the place, how beautifully the sunshine streams amongst them, how richly the song of the birds sound in the trees above, how full of a sparkling and fanciful light is the whole scenery round us when we dive into its depths. I was always fond of wandering through these scenes, and one day about that time I was out alone, at some distance beyond the castle of St. Anne's, when suddenly, as I was musing, and gazing, and drinking in, as it were, the sights and sounds around me, I heard the cry of dogs, and the sound of horns. But they were distant, and they passed away, and I went on wandering slowly, with my horse's bridle hanging loosely over my arm, till suddenly I heard the sound of galloping hoofs; and, immediately after, down the little road in which I was, came a gay wild horse of the Limousin, with a fair girl upon its back, who should hardly have been trusted to ride a fiery creature like that. She was not, indeed, a mere child, being apparently some sixteen or seventeen years of age, but extreme youth was in every feature and in every line, and, I might add, beauty also, for never in my life did I behold such visionlike loveliness as hers. The horse, with some sudden fright, must have darted away while she had laid down the rein, for at the time I met her, though not broken, it was floating at his feet, hazarding at every instant to throw him down. She sat firmly in the seat, and rode with grace and ease; but she was evidently much frightened, and as soon as she saw some one before her in the lane, she pointed with an eager gesture to the rein, and uttered some words which I did not hear. I easily divined her