“And you, Mademoiselle de Rohan, will you confess?”

“Oh, I am quite different,” she said.  “I quite know whom I love best, but just as I am quite sure about it, he does something disagreeable or stupid—­all men are really disagreeable or stupid when you get to know them—­and so then I try another, but it is always with the same result.”

“You are all very cruel,” the Duc de Carolan laughed.  “And you, Mademoiselle de Pignerolles?  But I know what you will say, you have never seen anyone worth loving.”

Adele did not answer; but her laughing friends insisted that as they had confessed their inmost thoughts, she ought to do the same.

For a moment she looked serious, then she laughed, and again put on a demure air.

“Yes,” said she, “I have had a grande passion, but it came to nothing.”

A murmur of “Impossible!” ran round the circle.

“It was nearly four years ago,” she said.

“Oh, nonsense, Adele, you were a child four years ago,” one of her companions said.

“Of course I was a child,” Adele said, “but I suppose children can love, and I loved an English boy.”

“Oh, oh, mademoiselle, an English boy!” and other amused cries ran round the circle.

“And did he love you, mademoiselle?” the Duc de Carolan asked.

“Oh, dear no,” the girl answered.  “I don’t suppose I should have loved him if he had.  But he was strong, and gentle, and brave, and he was nearly four years older than I was, and he always treated me with respect.  Oh, yes, I loved him.”

“He must have been the most insensible of boys,” the Duc de Carolan said; “but no doubt he was very good and gentle, this youthful islander; but how do you know that he was brave?”

The sneering tone with which the duke spoke was clearly resented by Adele, for her cheek flushed, and she spoke with an earnestness quite different from the half-laughing tone she had hitherto spoken in.

“I know that he was brave, Monsieur le Duc, because he fought with, and ran through the body, a man who insulted me.”

The girl spoke so earnestly that for a moment a hush fell upon the little group; and the Duc de Carolan, who clearly resented the warm tone in which she spoke, said: 

“Quite a hero of romance, mademoiselle.  This unfortunate who incurred your Paladin’s indignation was clearly more insolent than skillful, or Sir Amadis of sixteen could hardly have prevailed against the dragon.”

This time Adele de Pignerolles was seriously angry: 

“Monsieur le Duc de Carolan,” she said quietly, “you have honoured me by professing some admiration of my poor person, and methinks that good taste would have demanded that you would have feigned, at least, some interest in the boy who championed my cause.  I was wrong, even in merry jest, to touch on such a subject, but I thought that as French gentlemen you would understand that I was half serious,