to my mother, he should consider it as a sin to endeavour to make me marry one man, while I loved another to whom I was plighted.  But he said that there was no need to press the affair, and that he would put a stop to Darpent’s frequenting the house, since it only grieved my mother and might bring him into danger.  He would, as my mother wished, keep out attachment as a secret, and would at present take no steps if I were unmolested.

In private Eustace showed me that this was all he could do, and counseled me to put forward no plea, but to persist in my simple refusal, lest I should involve Clement Darpent in danger.  Had not Solivet ground his teeth and said order should be taken if he could believe his sister capable of any unworthy attachment?  ’And remember,’ said Eustace, ’Darpent is not in good odour with either party, and there is such a place as the Bastille.’

I asked almost in despair if he saw any end to it, or any hope, to which he said there always was hope.  If our King succeeded in regaining his crown we could go home, and we both believed that Clement would gladly join us there and become one of us.  For the present, Eustace said, I must be patient.  Nobody could hinder him from seeing Darpent, and he could make him understand how it all was, and how he must accept the ungrateful rebuffs that he had received from my mother.

No one can tell what that dear brother was to me then.  He replied in my name and his own to M. de Poligny, who was altogether at a loss to understand that any reasonable brother should attend to the views of a young girl, when such a satisfactory parti as his son was offered, even though the boy was at least six years younger than I was; and as my mother and Solivet did not fail to set before me, there was no danger of his turning out like that wretch d’Aubepine, as he was a gentle, well-conducted, dull boy, whom I could govern with a silken thread if I only took the trouble to let him adore me.  I thanked them, and said that was not exactly my idea of wedded life; and they groaned at my folly.

However, it turned out that M. de Poligny really wished his little Chevalier to finish his education before being married, and had only hastened his proposals because he wished to prevent the suit from coming up to be pleaded, and so it was agreed that the matter should stand over till this precious suitor of mine should have mastered his accidence and grown a little hair on his lip.  I believe my mother had such a wholesome dread of me, especially when backed by my own true English brother, that she was glad to defer the tug of war.  And as the proces was thus again deferred, I think she hoped that my brother would have no excuse for intercourse with the Darpents.  She had entirely broken off with them and had moreover made poor old Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney leave the Hotel de Nidemerle, all in politeness as they told us, but as the house was not her own, I should have found it very hard to forgive their expulsion had I been Margaret.