hy plumage, thou shalt fly to my
mistress! Is it not better to be nibbled by her than mumbled by a
cardinal? I, too, will feed on thy delicate beauty. Sweet bird! thy
companion has fled to my mistress; and now thou shalt thrill the nerves
of her master! Oh! doff, then, thy waistcoat of wine-leaves, pretty
rover! and show me that bosom more delicious even than woman's. What
gushes of rapture! What a flavour! How peculiar! Even how sacred I
Heaven at once sends both manna and quails. Another little wanderer!
Pray follow my example! Allow me. All Paradise opens! Let me die eating
ortolans to the sound of soft music!

Even the supper was brief, though brilliant; and again the cotillon and
the quadrille, the waltz and the galoppe! At no moment of his life had
the young Duke felt existence so intense. Wherever he turned his eye he
found a responding glance of beauty and admiration; wherever he turned
his ear the whispered tones were soft and sweet as summer winds. Each
look was an offering, each word adoration! His soul dilated; the glory
of the scene touched all his passions. He almost determined not again
to mingle in society; but, like a monarch, merely to receive the
world which worshipped him. The idea was sublime: was it even to him
impracticable? In the midst of his splendour he fell into a reverie, and
mused on his magnificence. He could no longer resist the conviction
that he was a superior essence, even to all around him. The world seemed
created solely for his enjoyment. Nor man nor woman could withstand him.
From this hour he delivered himself up to a sublime selfishness. With
all his passions and all his profusion, a callousness crept over his
heart. His sympathy for those he believed his inferiors and his vassals
was slight. Where we do not respect we soon cease to love; when we
cease to love, virtue weeps and flies. His soul wandered in dreams of
omnipotence.

This picture perhaps excites your dislike; perchance your contempt.
Pause! Pity him! Pity his fatal youth!

CHAPTER XI.

_Love at a Bazaar_

THE Lady Aphrodite at first refused to sit in the Duke's pavilion. Was
she, then, in the _habit_ of refusing? Let us not forget our Venus of
the Waters. Shall we whisper where the young Duke first dared to hope?
No, you shall guess. _Je vous le donne en trois_. The Gardens? The
opera? The tea-room? No! no! no! You are conceiving a locality much more
romantic. Already you have created the bower of a P