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erfectly that she does not seem to endure. In this representation the lion shows you the mental condition which lies hid behind that fair, stern front. Now is Marie Antoinette like that?' He turned the pictures again. 'I cannot tell!' said Wych Hazel. 'One minute her fortitude looks just like pride,--and then when you remember all she had to bear, it's not strange if she called up pride to help her. But it is not my ideal yet.' 'I think it _is_ pride,' said Rollo. 'So it looks to me. Pride and grief facing down death and humiliation. Marie Theresa's daughter and Louis Capet's queen acknowledging no degradation before her enemies--giving them no triumph that she could help. But that is not my ideal either.' He brought out another print. 'I always like that,' said Primrose. 'I do not know it,' said Wych Hazel. 'Don't you? it is very common. It is the eve of St. Bartholomew. This Catholic girl wants to tie a white favour round he lover's arm, to save him from the massacre soon to begin. She has had the misfortune to love a Huguenot. White favours, you remember, were the mark by which the Catholics were to know each other in the confusion.' 'And he will not let her. Was it a misfortune, I wonder?' 'What?' said Primrose. 'To love somebody so much nobler than herself. How gentle he is in his earnestness!' 'Don't be hard upon her,' said Rollo. 'Are you sure you wouldn't do so in her place?' 'No,--' she said, looking gravely up at him. 'She knew it was death to go without that white handkerchief.' 'But,' said Primrose softly, 'wouldn't you rather have him die true, than live dishonoured?' 'I think I should have tried,' said Wych Hazel,--'knowing I should fail. And then I should have thrown away my own favour, and gone with him wherever he went.' 'He wouldn't have let you do that either,' said Rollo. 'Then he would not have loved me as I loved him,' said the girl, very decidedly. 'He'd have been a pretty fellow!' said Rollo, as he turned the next print. It was a contrast to the St. Bartholomew; a Madonna and child, from Fra Bartholomeo, at which they were all content to look silently. Rollo began to talk, then, instead of asking questions, and made himself very interesting. So much he knew of art matters, so many a story and legend he could tell about the masters, and so well he could help the less initiated to enjoy and understand the work. So letting himself out in a sort of play-fas
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