142 THE WATCH-TOWER OF KOAT-VEU. 



Rita threw herself upon the couch and exclaimed "for God's sake, 

 Sir, explain yourself I" 



'* In the first place," said Henry, " her grace will permit me to en- 

 quire if she has heard of the count de Vandres.'' 



"A g-ood deal, Sir, when I was in the habit of visiting- Versailles." 



"Then her grace will learn probably with astonishment that I am 

 the count de Vandres." 



"You, Sir you, Henry; but then my God what avails that. But 

 the count de Vandres I was informed is a naval officer and serves at 

 present in America Tis impossible for pity's sake, Henry, explain 

 to me this mystery." 



" It is me, your grace. I did serve in America, in the admiral de 

 Guichen's fleet ; but after two years of employment I returned to 

 France about two months since." 



"Then, my lord," cried Rita some what passionately, at the same time 

 rising from the couch, "what has been the motive of this disguise ? 

 for mercy's sake, Henry, trifle no longer with a miserable woman 

 and then again your reason for this untruth ? what means 



" Would you have the goodness, Madam, to be seated, and you shall 

 know every thing," said Henry with the most imperturbable calmness. 



Rita sat herself mechanically upon the couch. 



lf Her grace will perhaps pardon me if my explanation refers back 

 to a period somewhat distant ; but this is necessary for the perfect 

 understanding of what will follow. It is now about two years since 

 that his lordship Marshal Richelieu, one of my best friends and dis- 

 tantly related to me, perceiving with sorrow that the frank and joyous 

 traditions of the regency and era of Louis XV. were being supplanted 

 and forgotten in the torrent of new ideas with which we were over- 

 whelmed, conceived the design of establishing a society (a club as 

 our Anglicised fashionables would call it), in which every member 

 should be a man of rank, the marshal reserving for himself the office 

 of president. 



"The members of this club were required to unmask the modern 

 hypocrisy, which, in place of acknowledging honestly as in olden time 

 that it sought pleasure, pretends to modesty, denies the truth, and to 

 justify itself crouches behind the authority of I know not what pre- 

 tended natural, fatal, sympathetic, and irresistible laws, and many 

 others which happily I forget, so that, when a woman deceives her 

 husband, they tell him, 'tis nothing, friend, "it was written;" or 

 again, " it is but nature" for the savage hordes do worse ; or, " it was 

 the magnetic current which carried me away" I was admitted a 

 member of this precious association some time before my departure 

 for America ; and, having been wounded in one of our last battles, 

 the admiral entrusted me with despatches for his majesty. 



"During my residence at Versailles, I chanced to hear a somewhat 

 unfeeling eulogy of your prudence, Madam, and between ourselves 

 you very justly deserved it. What, Madam, you who well knew 

 that you could not reproach yourself with the slightest weakness, and 

 yet not restrain the austere profession of your rigid principles? In- 

 deed it was a cynicism of virtue which the world dared not tolerate 

 with decency. There are two things which the world can never par- 

 don : in men, superiority ; in women, unspotted morals." 



