"Oh, that matters not!" answered D'Aubin; "it is as well sometimes to show these gentlemen of the League that, in a velvet pourpoint and silken hose, we can overthrow their best cavaliers, clothed from head to heel in good hard iron. I had not time to arm, and therefore ran two lances in my jerkin, having promised to give a course to Duverne and Maubeuge. So the king is wounded, they say! You have heard of it, of course. Should he die now, Huon--should he die, 'twould make a great difference in men's fates." "I do not see why or how," replied St. Real; and then--not remarking that his cousin, whose very speech had been rambling and unconnected, suffered his mind to wander inattentive to what any one else said--went on to give all his reasons for thinking that the death of Henry III. should make no earthly change in the conduct of any honourable man hitherto attached to the royal cause. "Huon!" interrupted D'Aubin, at length, "I have been thinking over what passed between us this morning, and I have come to crave a boon of you. Your safe-conduct from Mayenne is not yet near its end; and I would fain have you make one more journey to Paris. As I said before, I would trust you with aught on earth, such is my confidence in your honour; and you have great influence with Eugenie de Menancourt. She esteems and respects you, which is a very different thing from love, you know; no woman loves a man that she respects----" "Nay, nay, nay, Philip!" said St. Real, somewhat sickened with his cousin's conduct, and yet pained to remark the evident anxiety and distress which D'Aubin strove in vain to cover under a tone, half jest, half earnest. "Nay, nay, Philip! speak not thus of those who form more than one half of man's happiness or misery--speak not thus if you would ever win the love of those whose love is worth possessing." "Pshaw, Huon! you know them not!" replied the Count. "Respect and esteem may be the foundation of man's love for woman, but not of woman's love for man. Fear, jealousy, revenge, scorn, even hate itself, are nearer roads to woman's love than respect and esteem. You may disappoint her wishes, contradict her opinions, insult her understanding, pain her heart, ay, even cross her caprices! and yet win her love, if you will but pique her vanity. But a truce to such dissertations. Mark me, Huon! I think you love me, and wish me well; and I tell you sincerely, it imports much and deeply to my peace and comfort, that Eugenie de Menancourt should yield me a willing consent." "Not, I trust, from any pecuniary consideration," said St. Real, who entertained some vague suspicions that his cousin had outstepped even his princely revenues in the gay and thoughtless course he had pursued for many a year. "If so, speak at once, Philip, for you know the extent of my resources; and you likewise know, I trust, that those resources are your own, when you choose to command them."