278 ANOTHER CHAPTER ON THE "RIGHTS OF 



but one case in which you would be justified in speaking to me as you do. 

 Do you know what that is ?' 



" ' Tell me I am prepared for it I am undone.' 



" ' I will tell you, without anger without contempt That case would 

 be, when I should have encouraged you during how long shall I say 

 five minutes ? Is that too much ?' 



" ' Your mockery cuts me to the soul, but I have deserved it. No, you 

 did not encourage me for five minutes ; not a look, not a word was there 

 to warrant me to hope that ' 



" ' Unless you mistook for proofs of my love, or for the advances of my 

 coquettishness, the attentions and cares of an honest friendship the testi- 

 monies of a well-considered esteem. I have often been told that women 

 on this side of fifty are not justified in acting as I have done ; that their 

 frankness was unavailing ; that their testimony was not received by what 

 is supposed to be justice and common sense. I have tried it but with 

 whom? with fools and imbeciles. I took you for a person capable of 

 judging.' 



" ' Madam, you are unjust. You questioned me with authority. My 

 fault is, in not having spoken falsely when you said this moment ' if you 

 are in love it must be with me/ 



" ' St. Julien, your fault is not in telling me that you are in love, but it 

 is in being so.' 



" ' Do you, then, believe it possible to repress such feelings ?' 



"'Possibly. Were I a man, I should be the friend of Quintilia; I 

 should comprehend her divine her character perhaps esteem her. 



" ' Then give me to comprehend you/ said St. Julien, throwing himself 

 on his knees without approaching her, ' and perhaps I may be your friend 

 as well as subject/ 



" ' Count," said the princess, rising from her seat, ' I will not make 

 myself accountable to any one breathing. 1 have long since learned to 

 hold the opinion of men in contempt. Have you not read the device of 

 my escutcheon God is my judge.' 



" She departed, and St. Julien remained rivetted to the spot." 



On returning to the ball-room, St. Julien was accosted by the 

 malicious page Galeotto, who divined from his manner, and that of 

 the princess, that he had risked a declaration. Galeotto was a youth 

 of sixteen, with the face and figure of a boy of twelve. By the 

 princess he was treated as a child, and a handsome plaything ; but, 

 young as he was, he had all the maturity of vice, and the spirit of 

 intriguing ambition of the oldest courtier. From him St. Julien, for 

 the first time, learns all that was known of the history of the princess, 

 viz. that when she was twelve years of age she had been married by 

 proxy to an Austrian prince, who died, and left her a widow, without 

 her ever having seen her husband. But previous to this latter event, 

 Quintilia had fallen in love with the gentleman who acted as proxy, 

 the natural son of a German prince called Max, who continued at the 

 court for three years after the ceremony. At the expiration of this 

 period he disappeared suddenly, nobody could tell why or where- 

 fore, and the secret whispers of the court hinted that he was mur- 

 dered by the orders of Quintilia. In addition to this, the page 

 adroitly glanced at several intrigues in which the princess was sup- 

 posed to be concerned, concluding thus : 



" Some believe in the intrigues of the princess, some do not it is all one. 

 Nobody has sufficient principle to appreciate her virtue nobody has suf- 



