All knew her story, and to the daring that is in men's hearts her own daring appealed,--and she was young and very beautiful.

Some there had not been my friends, and now rejoiced in what seemed my inevitable ruin; some whom I had thought my friends were gone over to the stronger side; many who in secret wished me well still shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders over what they were pleased to call my madness; but for her, I was glad to know, there were only good words.

The Governor had left his gilt armchair to welcome her to the green, and had caused a chair to be set for her near his own, and here men came and bowed before her as if she had been a princess indeed.
A stir amongst the crowd, a murmur, and a craning of necks heralded the approach of that other at whom the town gaped with admiration.

He came with his retinue of attendants, his pomp of dress, his arrogance of port, his splendid beauty.

Men looked from the beauty of the King's ward to the beauty of the King's minion, from her costly silk to his velvet and miniver, from the air of the court that became her well to the towering pride and insolence which to the thoughtless seemed his fortune's proper mantle, and deemed them a pair well suited, and the King's will indeed the will of Heaven.
I was never one to value a man by his outward seeming, but suddenly I saw myself as in a mirror,--a soldier, scarred and bronzed, acquainted with the camp, but not with the court, roughened by a rude life, poor in this world's goods, the first flush of youth gone forever.