oiselle d'Argenson is noble,
rich, and handsome, the Viscount de Douarnez might be well justified
in looking for a wife far higher than the daughter of a simple Sieur
of Bretagne. Beside, although the children loved before any one spoke
of it--before any one saw it, indeed, save I--it was d'Argenson
himself who broke the subject. What, then, should induce him to play
false?"

"I do not know, yet I doubt--I fear him."

"But that, Marie, is unworthy of your character, of your mind."

"Louis, she is _too_ beautiful."

"I do not think Raoul will find fault with her on that score."

"Nor would one greater than Raoul."

"Whom do you mean?" cried the count, now for the first time startled.

"I have seen eyes fixed upon her in deadly admiration, which never
admire but they pollute the object of their admiration."

"The king's, Marie?"

"The king's."

"And then--?"

"And then I have heard it whispered that the Baron de Beaulieu has
asked her hand of the Sieur d'Argenson."

"The Baron de Beaulieu! and who the devil is the Baron de Beaulieu,
that the Sieur d'Argenson should doubt for the nine hundredth part of
a minute between him and the Viscount de Douarnez for the husband of
his daughter?"

"The Baron de Beaulieu, count, is the very particular friend, the
right hand man, and most private minister of his most Christian
Majesty King Louis the Fifteenth!"

"Ha! is it possible? Do you mean that?--"

"I mean even _that_. If, by that, you mean all that is most infamous
and loathsome on the part of Beaulieu, all that is most licentious on
the part of the king. I believe--nay, I am well nigh sure, that there
is such a scheme of villany on foot against that sweet, unhappy child;
and therefore would I pause ere I urged too far my child's love toward
her, lest it prove most unhappy and disastrous."

"And do you think d'Argenson capable--" exclaimed her husband--

"Of any thing," she answered, interrupting him, "of any thing that may
serve his avarice or his ambition."

"Ah! it may be so. I will look to it, Marie; I will look to it
narrowly. But I fear that if it be as you fancy, it is too late
already--that our boy's heart is devoted to her entirely--that any
break now, in one word, would be a heart-break."

"He loves her very dearly, beyond doubt," replied the lady; "and she
deserves it all, and is, I think, very fond of him likewise."

"And can you suppose for a moment that she will lend herself to such a
sche