Madame de Montpensier was surprised and pleased; and the Duchess de Guise, perhaps, inwardly determined to add St. Real to her train of admirers. At all events, both bent their efforts, in the first place, to gain him for the League; and the sister of the haughty house of Lorraine pursued her plan with the calm and steady purpose of a great diplomatist. In her communion with the young Marquis, she scrupulously avoided aught of coquetry--she suffered not a touch even of levity to be apparent in her manner--she put a guard upon her tongue and upon her eyes, and suffered not even an idle jest to pass those lips with which such things were so familiar. At first, affecting even a degree of distant coldness, she suffered the softer and more blandishing manners of the Duchess of Guise to smooth away all the difficulties of an accidental introduction; and then, as the conversation proceeded, she affected to become more interested, spoke wisely and cautiously, and assumed the tone of virtue and deep feeling, which she knew would harmonise with his principles; though, if all tales be true, that tone was the most difficult for her to affect. She soon contrived to discover a fact, of which she seemed to be ignorant till St. Real told her; namely, that he was the cousin of the Count d'Aubin; and then, acting upon one of those vague intuitions, which women are occasionally gifted with in regard to matters of the heart, she turned the conversation suddenly and abruptly to Mademoiselle de Menancourt, and the subject of her detention in Paris. St. Real was taken by surprise: there had been some warring in his bosom too, of late, in regard to the fair girl, who had been the companion of his early youth: it was the only point on which his thoughts were not as free and light as the sunshine on the waters; and, at the name of Eugenie de Menancourt, so suddenly pronounced, the blood mounted for a moment into his cheek, and glowed upon his brow.