But I was not disposed to endure his presumption and ill-temper beyond a certain point; and feeling no sympathy with him in a difficulty which he had brought upon himself by his spitefulness, I answered him roundly. "Yes," I said, "I will speak to him, if you please. But not otherwise. I can assure you, I should not do it for everyone." But M. de Saintonge's chagrin and rage at finding himself thus rebuffed, in a quarter where his haughty temper had led him to expect an easy compliance, would not allow him to stoop to my offer. He flung away with expressions of the utmost resentment, and even in the hearing of my servants uttered so many foolish and violent things against me, that had my discretion been no greater than his I must have taken notice of them. As, however, I had other and more important affairs upon my hands, and it has never been my practice to humour such hot-heads by placing myself on a level with them, I was content to leave his punishment to St. Mesmin; assured that in him M. Saintonge would find an opponent more courageous and not less stubborn than himself. The event bore me out, for within a week M. de St. Mesmin's pretensions to the hand of Mademoiselle de Saintonge shared with the Biron affair the attention of all Paris. The young lady, whose reputation and the care which had been spent on her breeding, no less than her gifts of person and character, deserved a better fate, attained in a moment a notoriety far from enviable; rumour's hundred tongues alleging, and probably with truth--for what father can vie with a gallant in a maiden's eyes?--that her inclinations were all on the side of the pretender. At any rate, St. Mesmin had credit for them; there was talk of stolen meetings and a bribed waiting-woman; and though such tales were probably as false as those who gave them currency were fair, they obtained credence with the thoughtless, and being repeated from one to another, in time reached her father's ears, and contributed with St. Mesmin's persecution to render him almost beside himself. Doubtless with a man of less dogged character, or one more amenable to reason, the Marquis would have known how to deal; but the success which had hitherto rewarded St. Mesmin's course of action had confirmed the young man in his belief that everything was to be won by courage; so that the more the Marquis blustered and threatened the more persistent the suitor showed himself. Wherever Mademoiselle's presence was to be expected, St. Mesmin appeared, dressed in the extreme of the fashion and wearing either a favour made of her colours or a glove which he asserted that she had given him. Throwing himself in her road on every occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks and gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by his self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that rendered her conspicuous and must have covered another than himself with inextinguishable laughter.