“—Still, I certainly would not thank him, because I have had to pay for that mistake, even more heavily than women do now. Ah, Florian, as I so often think, it is always the woman who pays! For, you conceive, in my first life, back at Brunbelois, I mean, in those perfectly awful days of chivalry, I used to be worshipped, or at least that was what it came to in practise, as a symbol of heavenly excellence—” Florian said, with an attempt at gallantry, “I can well imagine—” “Oh, it was without any actually personal application, you understand: it was just that all ladies were regarded in that light. It was considered that in making women Heaven had revealed the full extent of Heaven’s powers. So they made us sit upon uncomfortable thrones at their tournaments—” “But,” Florian protested, “these honorable and extremely picturesque customs—” “My dear, that is all very well! but they used to last for a week sometimes. And there we would have to sit, from six to seven hours a day, with canopies but no cushions, and with no toilet conveniences, and with nothing whatever to do except to watch them sticking and poking and chopping one another in order to show how they respected us,—though I could never understand just how that came in, because my back hurt me too much, apart from my other troubles—” “But as a symbol—” This horrible woman seemed resolved to leave him no one last shred of his dream. “It was not the symbolism I objected to, Florian, but the endless inconvenience. The tournaments were only a part of it; and of course even after them you could get liniment, and you soon learned not to drink anything with your breakfast. But they walked off with your sleeves and handkerchiefs, with or without your leave: and when you go to put on your gloves, let me tell you, it is most annoying to find that the other one is several miles away in somebody’s helmet—” “Now,” Florian said, yet more and more shocked, “you illogically apply prosaic standards to the entirely poetic attitude of chivalry—” “Oh, as for their poetry, telling what marvelous creatures they thought us, they were all over the place with it. That was trying enough in the day-time: but when it came to being waked up long before dawn, and prevented from getting a wink of beauty-sleep at night, by their aubades and serenas about how wonderful you were, I do assure you, it was really very tiresome—” “I can see that.” Logic compelled the admission, however repulsive it was to find a woman blundering into logic. “But, still, madame—” “Yes, you can see that, Florian, now, because you now comprehend you have been as foolishly exaggerative as any of them. Florian, you are a romantic: and from the first that has been the trouble, because it was that which made you fall in love with your notion of Melior. That was just what you did, without even having talked with me—” “Parbleu, but certainly it was without having heard you talk—”