Monsieur de Nesselrode had been constantly at the house since the day we spent at the Château des Roses, but no one saw much of him except Mr. Lovett. He would salute us on entering the room, or passing in the road, and address a few polite inquiries respecting our health; but the strict etiquette which is preserved between the unmarried of both sexes, abroad, was in full force with Ange and Tessie, who never seemed to speak to a man except in monosyllables. I confess this extreme decorum rather oppressed me. I was always longing to have my inferior mind drawn out and elevated by those superior to itself, and my dear mother had encouraged me in the idea that men were meant to be friends to women as well as lovers; and that it was not always necessary that the last state should be worse than the first. I had been very proud, at one time, to be considered worthy of engaging in argument with such a clever man as Mr. Warrington, and had felt the greatest interest in trying to defeat him with his own weapons, which is not an unusual termination to such intellectual skirmishes. And now, to see Tessie’s drawn-down lip and Ange’s look of dismay, if I stopped to say more than ‘_Bon jour, monsieur_,’ when we met Armand de Nesselrode, was aggravating to me. I wanted very much to speak to him about young Thrale, for I had an intuition that he would try and befriend the boy, but it was quite impossible that I should do so before Mr. Lovett or either of the girls. I had determined, therefore, that when an opportunity occurred for me to see the Baron alone, I would set all the absurd rules of foreign etiquette at defiance, and tell him just what was in my mind. More than that, I do not mind confessing, at this date, that on several occasions, when I was able to leave the house by myself, I walked up and down the hill that led to the château in hopes of seeing him; but fate was against me, and we never met. It was to be, however, and at last it came to pass. One day, about a fortnight after Mr. Charteris had taken up his abode with us, most of which time he had spent at the château, or in the forest of Piron, some caprice—want of excitement, probably—took him back to Rille for a couple of nights. We had been feasting—that is, I should say, Mr. Lovett had been feasting—more than usually well since his guest’s arrival, and owing to that, I suppose, on the very day he left us the old gentleman was obliged to take to his bed with a bilious attack.