'I have heard my mother speak of it far too often to forget it,'
said Berenger, glowing again for her who could speak of that
occasion without a blush.
'You wish to gloss over your first inconstancy, sir,' she said,
archly; but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney's
coming to tell him that the Ambassador was ready to return home.
He took leave with an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much
that he desired to be commended to his cousin Diane, whom he had
not seen.
'To Diane?' said the lady, inquiringly.
'To Mademoiselle Diane de Ribaumont,' he corrected himself, ashamed
of his English rusticity. 'I beg pardon if I spoke too familiarly
of her.'
'She should be flattered by M. le Baron's slightest recollection,'
said the lady, with an ironical tone that there was no time to
analyze, and with a mutual gesture of courtesy he followed Sidney
to where Sir Francis awaited them.
'Well, what think you of the French court?' asked Sidney, so soon
as the young men were in private.
'I only know that you may bless your good fortune that you stand in
no danger from a wife from thence.'
'Ha!' cried Sidney, laughing, 'you found your lawful owner. Why
did you not present me?'
'I was ashamed of her bold visage.'
'What!--was she the beauteous demoiselle I found you gallanting,'
said Philip Sidney, a good deal entertained, 'who was gazing at you
with such visible admiration in her languishing black eyes?'
'The foul fiend seize their impudence!'
'Fie! for shame! thus to speak of your own wife,' said the
mischievous Sidney, 'and the fairest----'
'Go to, Sidney. Were she fairer than Venus, with a kingdom to her
dower, I would none of a woman without a blush.'
'What, in converse with her wedded husband,' said Sidney. 'Were
not that over-shamefastness?'
'Nay, now, Sidney, in good sooth give me your opinion. Should she
set her fancy on me, even in this hour, am I bound in honour to
hold by this accursed wedlock--lock, as it may well be called?'
'I know no remedy,' said Sidney, gravely, 'save the two enchanted
founts of love and hate. They cannot be far away, since it was at
the siege of Paris that Rinaldo and Orlando drank thereof.'
Another question that Berenger would fain have asked Sidney, but
could not for very shame and dread of mockery, was, whether he
himself were so dangerously handsome as the lady had given him to
understand. With a sense of shame, he caught up the little mirror
in his casket, and could not but allow to himself that the features
he there saw were symmetrical--the eyes azure, the complexion of a
delicate fairness, such as he had not seen equaled, except in those
splendid Lorraine princes; nor could he judge of the further effect
of his open-faced frank simplicity and sweetness of expression--
contemptible, perhaps, to the astute, but most winning to the
world-weary. He shook his head at the fair reflection, smiled as
he saw the colour rising at his own sensation of being a fool, and
then threw it aside, vexed with himself for being unable not to
feel attracted by the first woman who had shown herself struck by
his personal graces, and yet aware that this was the very thing he
had been warned against, and determined to make all the resistance
in his power to a creature whose very beauty and enchantment gave
him a sense of discomfort.