Was the first lady right or wrong? She was right to hesitate in accepting De Lorge's "devotion"--not because De Lorge was worthless, but because she did not love him. The King spoke truly when he said that not love set that task to humanity. Neither did mere vanity set it, as we now perceive; but _only_ love could excuse the test which love could never have imposed. De Lorge was worthless--no matter; the lady held no right over him, whatever he was, for she did not love him. And not alone her "test" was the proof of this: her hesitation had already proved it. But, it may be said, the age was different: women still believed that love could come to them through "wooing." Nowadays, to be sure, so subtle a woman as this would know that her own heart lay passive, and that women's hearts do not lie passive when they love. . . . But I think there were few things about love that women did not know in the days of King Francis! We have only to read the discourses of Marguerite de Valois, sister of the King--we have only to consider the story of Diane de Poitiers, seventeen years older than her Dauphin, to realise _that_ most fully. Women's hearts were the same; and a woman's heart, when it loves truly, will make no test for very pride-in-love's dear sake. It scorns tests--too much scorns them, it may be, and yet I know not. Again it is the Meredithian axiom which arrests me: "He learnt how much we gain who make no claims." Our lovers then may be, should be, prepared to plunge among the lions for our gloves--but we should not be able to send them! And if so, a De Lorge here and there should win a "hand" he merits not, we may reflect that the new, no more than the old, De Lorge will have won the _heart_ which doubts--and, doubting, flings (or keeps) the glove. "Utter the true word--out and away Escapes her soul." . . . Gloves flung to lions are not the answer which that enfranchised soul will give! And so the Lady thought right and did wrong: 'twas _not_ love set that task to humanity. Even Browning cannot win her our full pardon; we devote not many kerchiefs to drying this "tear." II.--DIS ALITER VISUM; OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS