bowed her out of the room, more than once, when the paroxysms became unbearable. The Marquise never went further than the door, where she fell on her knees in the passage and wept. He explained clearly enough how he had bequeathed to her all that was left of his dilapidated estates. Then he sent his duty to the king, observing that "He had served his Majesty under fire often, but never under water till now. He feared it was the last occasion of presenting his homage to his sovereign." And so, asking for Cerise, who was brought in by her weeping mother, died brave and tranquil, with his arm round his child and a gold snuff-box in his hand.
Ladies cannot be expected to sorrow as inconsolably for a mate of seventy as for one of seven-and-twenty, but the Marquise de Montmirail grieved very honestly, nevertheless, and mourned during the prescribed period, with perhaps even more circumspection than had she lost a lover as well as, or instead of, a husband. Wagers were laid at Court that she would marry again within a year; yet the year passed by and Madame had not so much as seen anybody but her child and its bonne. Even Malletort was excluded from her society, and that versatile ecclesiastic, though pluming himself on his knowledge of human nature, including its most inexplicable half, was obliged to confess he was at a loss!
"Peste!" he would observe, taking a pinch of snuff, and flicking the particles delicately off his ruffles, "was not the sphinx a woman? At least down to the waist. So, I perceive, is the Marquise. What would you have? There is a clue to every labyrinth, but it is not always worth while to puzzle it out!"
After a time, when the established period for seclusion had expired, the widow, more beautiful than ever, made her appearance once more at Court. That she loved admiration there could not now be the slightest doubt, and the self-denial became at length apparent with which she had declined it during her husband's lifetime, that she might not wring his kind old heart. So, in all societies—at balls, at promenades, at concerts—at solemn attendances on the king, at tedious receptions of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, sons and daughters of majesty, legitimate
