'I have heard Signor Montoni say,' rejoined Cavigni, 'that he never knew
but one woman who deserved it.'
'Well!' exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of
unutterable complacency, 'and who could she be?' '
O!' replied Cavigni, 'it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly
there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit to
deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the case
entirely.' He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than before for
her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.
'Well, signor!' said Madame Cheron, 'I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say any thing half so gallant as that!'
'True, madam,' said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with a
low bow, 'but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost, but
for the ingenuity that discovered the application.'
Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical
sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on
her account. 'O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,' said her aunt, 'I
protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to me.'
The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk. 'Pray, who
is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?' asked Madame
Cheron, with an air of chagrin, 'I have not seen him once.'
'He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Riviere,'
replied Cavigni, 'which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment,
or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you,
madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say. But, I know not how it
is--your conversation is so fascinating--that it can charm even memory,
I think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend's apology
before.' 'The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,' said
Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni's neglect,
than flattered by Cavigni's compliment. Her manner, at this moment, and
Cavigni's late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in Emily's mind,
which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to confirm it,
appeared preposterous. She thought she perceived, that Montoni was
paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only accepted
them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect on his
part.--That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second husband was
ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but that Montoni,
with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should make a choice
of Madame Cheron--appeared most wonderful. Her thoughts, however, did
not dwell long on the subject; nearer interests pressed upon them;
Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing with a gay and
beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind. As she passed along
the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing and half hoping
that he might appear in the crowd; and the disappointment she felt on
not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped more than she had feared.