"Fie! you know nothing of human nature," replied D'Aubin, with a scoff; "or rather, I should say, of woman's nature. They are light--light, Huon, as a dry leaf borne about upon the breath of every wind that blows. The best of them, believe me, is firm in nothing but her caprices. Mark me, Huon!" he added, laying his hand upon his cousin's arm, and speaking with bitter emphasis, "within these ten days I have seen Mademoiselle de Menancourt. I demanded a pass from Mayenne; he granted it without a scruple, and free speech also of his fair ward, as he called her. He was sure of the impression he had made, and, therefore, kept up all fair seeming. I saw Eugenie; and she calmly and coldly refused to ratify the promise that her father had made me. Do you hear? She refused me! She rejected me! She told me she did not, she could not love me!" And, giving way to a violent burst of passion, totally opposed to the calm and contemptuous tone in which he had before been speaking, he dashed his glove angrily down upon the floor, as if it were the object that offended him. His cousin looked down in silence. He imagined, and not without probability, that Mademoiselle de Menancourt must have seen the licentious manner in which D'Aubin had trifled with the ladies of Catherine's libertine court, and that she had resented it accordingly. But, however culpably he might deem that his cousin had acted, he would not have pressed it on him then for the world; and, besides, there were sensations in his own bosom, at that moment, which forcibly called upon his attention, and both surprised and alarmed him.