I had occasion to fall in love with any man when I know man
so well? You make me laugh! Not one of them is worthy a sigh. To
make fools of them; what a pastime!"

"Take care that one does not make a fool of you, Gabrielle."

"Ah, he would be worth loving!"

"But what are you going to do with the property?"

"Mazarin has already posted the seals upon it."

"Confiscated?"

"About to be. That is why I fled to Rouen. My mother warned me that
the cardinal had found certain documents which proved that a conspiracy
was forming at the hotel. Monsieur's name was the only one he could
find. His Eminence thought that by making a prisoner of me he might
force me to disclose the names of those most intimate with monsieur.
He is searching France for me, Anne; and you know how well he searches
when he sets about it. Will he find me? I think not. His arm can not
reach very far into Spain. How lucky it was that I should meet you in
Rouen! I was wondering where in the world I should go. And I shall
live peacefully in that little red chateau of yours. Oh! if you knew
what it is to be free! The odious life I have lived! He used to bring
his actress into the dining-hall. Pah! the paint was so thick on her
face that she might have been a negress for all you could tell what her
color was. And he left her a house near the forest park and seven
thousand livres beside. Free!" She drew in deep breaths of briny air.

"Gabrielle, you are a mystery to me. Four years out of convent, and
not a lover; I mean one upon whom you might bestow love. And that
handsome Vicomte d'Halluys?"

"Pouf! I would not throw him yesterday's rose."

"And Monsieur de Saumaise?"

"Well, yes; he is a gallant fellow. And I fear that I have brought
trouble into his household. But love him? As we love our brothers.
The pulse never bounds, the color never comes and goes, the tongue is
never motionless nor the voice silenced in the presence of a brother.
My love for Victor is friendship without envy, distrust, or
self-interest. He came upon my sadness and shadow as a rainbow comes
on the heels of a storm. But love him with the heart's love, the love
which a woman gives to one man and only once?"

"Poor Victor!" said Anne.

"Oh, do not worry about Victor. He is a poet. One of their
prerogatives is to fall in love every third moon. But the poor boy!
Anne, I have endangered his head, and quite innocently, too. I knew
not what was going