, and restless her nights
and days; and yet, whatever her determination to practise upon her
cousin the witcheries that she had learnt in the _Escadron de la
Reine-mere_, and seen played off effectually where there was not one
grain of love to inspire them, her powers and her courage always failed
her in the presence of him whom she sought to attract. His quiet reserve
and simplicity always disconcerted her, and any attempt at blandishment
that he could not mistake was always treated by him as necessarily
an accidental error, as if any other supposition would render her
despicable; and yet there was now and then a something that made her
detect an effort in his restraint, as if it were less distaste
than self-command. Her brother had contemptuously acquiesced in the
experiment made by herself and her father, and allowed that so long as
there was any danger of the Quinet marriage, the Baron's existence was
needful. He would not come to Nid-de-Merle, nor did they want him there,
knowing that he could hardly have kept his hands off his rival. But when
the war broke out again in the summer of 1575 he joined that detachment
of Guise's army which hovered about the Loire, and kept watch on the
Huguenot cities and provinces of Western France. The Chevalier made
several expeditions to confer with his son, and to keep up his relations
with the network of spies whom he had spread over the Quinet provinces.
The prisoners were so much separated from all intercourse with the
dependants that they were entirely ignorant of the object of his absence
from home. On these occasions they never left their tower and its court,
and had no enlivenment save an occasional gift of dainties or message
of inquiry from the ladies at Bellaise. These were brought by a handsome
but slight, pale lad called Aime de Selinville, a relative of the late
Count, as he told them, who had come to act as a gentleman attendant
upon the widowed countess. The brothers rather wondered how he was
disposed of at the convent, but all there was so contrary to their
preconceived notions that they acquiesced. The first time he arrived
it was on a long, hot summer day, and he then brought them a cool iced
sherbet in two separate flasks, that for Philip being mixed with wine,
which was omitted for Berenger; and the youth stood lingering and
watching, anxious, he said, to be able to tell his lady how the drinks
were approved. Both were excellent, and to that effect the prisoners