But tell me more about Monsieur de Bourbon and Juliette.

He is passionately in love with her, of course; he is so miserable." The Marquis reflected for a few moments.
"Well," he said, at last, "he may be so; he may be so, Comtesse." "And you--what did you say ?" The Marquis looked carefully round before replying.

Then he leant forward with his forefinger raised delicately to the tip of his nose.
"I temporised, Comtesse," he said, in a low voice.

"I explained as gracefully as one could that it was too early to think of such a development--that I was taken by surprise." "Which could hardly have been true," put in Madame de Chantonnay in an audible aside to the mulberry-tree, "for neither Guienne nor la Vendee will be taken by surprise." "I said, in other words--a good many words, the more the better, for one must be polite--'Secure your throne, Monsieur, and you shall marry Juliette.' But it is not a position into which one hurries the last of the house of Gemosac--to be the wife of an unsuccessful claimant, eh ?" Madame de Chantonnay approved in one gesture of her stout hand of these principles and of the Marquis de Gemosac's masterly demonstration of them.
"And Monsieur de Bourbon--did he accept these conditions ?" "He seemed to, Madame.

He seemed content to do so," replied the Marquis, tapping his snuff-box and avoiding the lady's eye.
"And Juliette ?" inquired Madame, with a sidelong glance.
"Oh, Juliette is sensible," replied the fond father.