“Don’t talk about tempting, Rodney.  You can’t imagine how tiresome those men become—­always on the hunt for money—­always trying to find a wife who’ll support them without their having to work.  I speak of the good people, of course.  With the bourgeoisie it’s different.  They work and take care of their families like other people.  Only they don’t count.  If I hadn’t money—­they’d slam the door on me like that.”  She indicated the violence of the act by gesture.  “As it is, they smother me.  There are three of them at Melcourt-le-Danois at this present moment—­Anne Marie de Melcourt’s two boys and one girl.  They’re all waiting for me to supply the funds with which they’re to make rich marriages.  Is it any wonder that I look upon what’s done for my own niece as so much saved?  Henry’s getting into such a hole seemed to me providential—­gives me the chance to snatch something away from them before they—­and when it’s to go ultimately to him—­”

“The young fellow you’ve taken such a fancy to?”

“You’d have taken a fancy to him, too, if you’d known only men who make it a trade to ask all and give next to nothing in return.  You’d be smitten to the core by a man who asks nothing and offers all, if he were as ugly as a gargoyle.  But when he takes the form of a blond Hercules, with eyes blue as the myosotis, and a mustache—­mais une moustache!—­and with no idea whatever of the bigness of the thing he’s doing!  It was the thunderbolt, Rodney—­le coup de foudre—­and no wonder!”

“I hope you told him so.”

“I was very stiff with him.  I sent him about his business just like that.”  She snapped her fingers.  “But I only meant it with reserves.  I let him see how I had been wronged—­how cruelly Olivia had misunderstood me—­but I showed him, too, how I could forgive.”  She tore at her breast as though to lay bare her heart.  “Oh, I impressed him—­not all at once perhaps—­but little by little—­”

“As he came to know you.”

“I wouldn’t let him go away.  He stayed at the inn in the village two weeks and more.  It’s an old chef of mine who keeps it.  And I learned all his secrets.  He thought he was throwing dust in my eyes, but he didn’t throw a grain.  As if I couldn’t see who was in love with who—­after all my experience!  Ah, mon bon Rodney, if I’d been fifty years younger!  And yet if I’d been fifty years younger, I shouldn’t have judged him at his worth.  He’s the type to which you can do justice only when you’ve a standard of comparison, n’est-ce pas?  It’s in putting him beside other men—­the best—­even Ashley over there—­that you see how big he is.”

She tossed her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, sitting by the tea-table at the other end of the room.  Mrs. Temple had again found errands of mercy to insure her absence.