hen her father addressed
her significantly: 'Marquise, you did me the honour to consent to
accompany me to the Church of the Frari this afternoon?' she felt her
self-accusation of coquettry biting under her bosom like a thing alive.

Roland explained the situation to Nevil.

'It is the mania with us, my dear Nevil, to marry our girls young to
established men. Your established man carries usually all the signs,
visible to the multitude or not, of the stages leading to that eminence.
We cannot, I believe, unless we have the good fortune to boast the
paternity of Hercules, disconnect ourselves from the steps we have
mounted; not even, the priests inform us, if we are ascending to heaven;
we carry them beyond the grave. However, it seems that our excellent
marquis contrives to keep them concealed, and he is ready to face
marriage--the Grandest Inquisitor, next to Death. Two furious
matchmakers--our country, beautiful France, abounds in them--met one
day; they were a comtesse and a baronne, and they settled the alliance.
The bell was rung, and Renee came out of school. There is this to
be said: she has no mother; the sooner a girl without a mother has a
husband the better. That we are all agreed upon. I have no personal
objection to the marquis; he has never been in any great scandals. He
is Norman, and has estates in Normandy, Dauphiny, Touraine; he is
hospitable, luxurious. Renee will have a fine hotel in Paris. But I am
eccentric: I have read in our old Fabliaux of December and May. Say the
marquis is November, say October; he is still some distance removed from
the plump Spring month. And we in our family have wits and passions.
In fine, a bud of a rose in an old gentleman's button-hole! it is a
challenge to the whole world of youth; and if the bud should leap?
Enough of this matter, friend Nevil; but sometimes a friend must allow
himself to be bothered. I have perfect confidence in my sister, you
see; I simply protest against her being exposed to... You know men. I
protest, that is, in the privacy of my cigar-case, for I have no chance
elsewhere. The affair is on wheels. The very respectable matchmakers
have kindled the marquis on the one hand, and my father on the other,
and Renee passes obediently from the latter to the former. In India they
sacrifice the widows, in France the virgins.'

Roland proceeded to relate his adventure. Nevil's inattention piqued him
to salt and salt it wonderfully, until the old story of H