made up your mind that five-and-forty
years with tact will hold the field against nine-and-thirty with beauty.
Well, when your lady has won, she will doubtless remember who were the
first to pay court to her."

"But I think that you are wrong, Racine."

"Well, we shall see."

"And if you are wrong--"

"Well, what then?"

"Then it may be a little serious for you."

"And why?"

"The Marquise de Montespan has a memory."

"Her influence may soon be nothing more."

"Do not rely too much upon it, my friend. When the Fontanges came up
from Provence, with her blue eyes and her copper hair, it was in every
man's mouth that Montespan had had her day. Yet Fontanges is six feet
under a church crypt, and the marquise spent two hours with the king
last week. She has won once, and may again."

"Ah, but this is a very different rival. This is no slip of a country
girl, but the cleverest woman in France."

"Pshaw, Racine, you know our good master well, or you should, for you
seem to have been at his elbow since the days of the Fronde. Is he a
man, think you, to be amused forever by sermons, or to spend his days at
the feet of a lady of that age, watching her at her tapestry-work, and
fondling her poodle, when all the fairest faces and brightest eyes of
France are as thick in his _salons_ as the tulips in a Dutch flower-bed?
No, no, it will be the Montespan, or if not she, some younger beauty."

"My dear Boileau, I say again that her sun is setting. Have you not
heard the news?"

"Not a word."

"Her brother, Monsieur de Vivonne, has been refused the _entre_."

"Impossible!"

"But it is a fact."

"And when?"

"This very morning."

"From whom had you it?"

"From De Catinat, the captain of the guard. He had his orders to bar
the way to him."

"Ha! then the king does indeed mean mischief. That is why his brow is
so cloudy this morning, then. By my faith, if the marquise has the
spirit with which folk credit her, he may find that it was easier to win
her than to slight her."

"Ay; the Mortemarts are no easy race to handle."

"Well, heaven send him a safe way out of it! But who is this gentleman?
His face is somewhat grimmer than those to which the court is
accustomed. Ha! the king catches sight of him, and Louvois beckons to
him to advance. By my faith, he is one who would be more at his ease in
a tent than under a painted ceiling."

The stranger who had attracted Racine's attention was a tall