comely at thirty.  Ours are flowers, yours are stars!  See, I betray myself, I am so poor a patriot.  And there is one among these stars—­ah, yes, there is one—­the poor Frenchman has observe’ from his humble distance; even there he could bask in the glowing!” M. Beaucaire turned to the window, and looked out into the dark.  He did not see the lights of the town.  When he turned again, he had half forgotten his prisoner; other pictures were before him.

“Ah, what radiance!” he cried.  “Those people up over the sky, they want to show they wish the earth to be happy, so they smile, and make this lady.  Gold-haired, an angel of heaven, and yet a Diana of the chase!  I see her fly by me on her great horse one day; she touch’ his mane with her fingers.  I buy that clipping from the groom.  I have it here with my dear brother’s picture.  Ah, you!  Oh, yes, you laugh!  What do you know!  ’Twas all I could get.  But I have heard of the endeavor of M. le Duc to recoup his fortunes.  This alliance shall fail.  It is not the way—­that heritage shall be safe’ from him!  It is you and me, monsieur!  You can laugh!  The war is open’, and by me!  There is one great step taken:  until to-night there was nothing for you to ruin, to-morrow you have got a noble of France—­your own protege—­to besiege and sack.  And you are to lose, because you think such ruin easy, and because you understand nothing—­far less—­of divinity.  How could you know?  You have not the fiber; the heart of a lady is a blank to you; you know nothing of the vibration.  There are some words that were made only to tell of Lady Mary, for her alone—­bellissima, divine, glorieuse!  Ah, how I have watch’ her!  It is sad to me when I see her surround’ by your yo’ng captains, your nobles, your rattles, your beaux—­ha, ha!—­and I mus’ hol’ far aloof.  It is sad for me—­but oh, jus’ to watch her and to wonder!  Strange it is, but I have almos’ cry out with rapture at a look I have see’ her give another man, so beautiful it was, so tender, so dazzling of the eyes and so mirthful of the lips.  Ah, divine coquetry!  A look for another, ah-i-me! for many others; and even to you, one day, a rose, while I—­I, monsieur, could not even be so blessed as to be the groun’ beneath her little shoe!  But to-night, monsieur—­ha, ha!—­to-night, monsieur, you and me, two princes, M. le Duc de Winterset and M. le Duc de Chateaurien—­ha, ha! you see?—­we are goin’ arm-in-arm to that ball, and I am goin’ have one of those looks, I!  And a rose!  I!  It is time.  But ten minute’, monsieur.  I make my apology to keep you waitin’ so long while I go in the nex’ room and execute my poor mustachio—­that will be my only murder for jus’ this one evening—­and inves’ myself in white satin.  Ha, ha!  I shall be very gran’, monsieur.  Francois, send Louis to me; Victor, to order two chairs for monsieur and me; we are goin’ out in the worl’ to-right!”

Chapter Two