It is in vain that the Countess would banish this insolent. She denies him her door--he comes in at the window. She gives her servants the most severe orders--instant dismissal for the renegade who admits the Marquis. But in spite of her the rejected wretch is perpetually at her feet. She triumphs in the thought of having outwitted him, and the next moment he is there--by her side. She sends for her milliner, and lo, her milliner is the Marquis. She orders a cup of chocolate, and the lackey who brings it is the Marquis. She summonses one of her gardeners to complain of the poverty of her exotics, and the gardener is transformed into the Marquis. And in all this there are involved those exquisite complications, that delicious _èquivoque_ of which Scribe was so great a master. Every moment there is some fresh situation, some new and delightful perplexity. Now the Marquis is hiding behind a screen--now dipping his powered head up and down behind an ottoman. The Duke is always being fooled more or less, and the Countess is forced into deceptions she abhors by the artifices of her impertinent suitor. And with the fabulous good luck of all these fascinating scapegraces of the Parisian drama, the Marquis triumphs over every difficulty. All that he has promised to do in jest, he is able to achieve in earnest: without effort, for the trump-cards of fortune drop into his hands. He _does_ save the King's life, in a hunting party, almost by accident. He _does_ discover a real political conspiracy, and again almost by accident. The King is delighted with him, the Pompadour forgives him, the forfeited lands of an ancestor are restored to him. A Jew miser who has begged of him, and whom he has assisted, dies and leaves him millions. And at last, tormented beyond all measure, the Countess yields; the Duke retires, glad to be out of a contest which is altogether unfamiliar to his stateliness, and the Marquis triumphs.