"_Vogue la galere_!" _Vogue la galere_, indeed! As if I had anything to do with the _galere_, except to sit down in it, the most helpless of galley-slaves, and blindly submit to the gyves and chains of Madame de Marignan, who, regarding me as the lawful captive of her bow and spear, carried me off at once to a vacant _causeuse_ in a distant corner.
To send me in search of a footstool, to make me hold her fan, to overwhelm me with questions and bewilder me with a thousand coquetries, were the immediate proceedings of Madame de Marignan.

A consummate tactician, she succeeded, before a quarter of an hour had gone by, in putting me at my ease, and in drawing from me everything that I had to tell--all my past; all my prospects for the future; the name and condition of my father; a description of Saxonholme, and the very date of my birth.

Then she criticized all the ladies in the room, which only drew my attention more admiringly upon herself; and she quizzed all the young men, whereby I felt indirectly flattered, without exactly knowing why; and she praised Dalrymple in terms for which I could have embraced her on the spot had she been ten times less pretty, and ten times less fascinating.
I was an easy victim, after all, and scarcely worth the powder and shot of an experienced _franc-tireur;_ but Madame de Marignan, according to her own confession, had a taste for civilizing "handsome boys," and as I may, perhaps, have come under that category a good many years ago, the little victory amused her! By the time, at all events, that Dalrymple returned to tell me it was past one o'clock in the morning, and I must be introduced to the mistress of the house before leaving, my head was as completely turned as that of old Time himself.
"Past one!" I exclaimed.

"Impossible! We cannot have been here half-an hour." At which neither Dalrymple nor Madame de Marignan could forbear smiling.
"I hope our acquaintance is not to end here, monsieur," said Madame de Marignan.

"I live in the Rue Castellane, and am at home to my friends every Wednesday evening." I bowed almost to my boots.
"And to my intimates, every morning from twelve to two," she added very softly, with a dimpled smile that went straight to my heart, and set it beating like the paddle-wheels of a steamer.
I stammered some incoherent thanks, bowed again, nearly upset a servant with a tray of ices, and, covered with confusion, followed Dalrymple into the farther room.