Alain was not a man of the world. With something of a poet's nature, he
was born to be the slave of women. Passionately attached to the mother
who had brought him up--and who was lately dead--and wholly unacquainted
with the coarser aspects of feminine character, he had a romantic ideal
of womanhood. The ladies in whose company he might chance to find
himself were usually quick enough to discover this; and seeing him at
their feet were always trampling upon him, reserving their wiles and
fascinations for men who were more artful or less chivalrous. The case
was by no means singular in those days, and is believed to be
occasionally reproduced even in more recent times.

He was now thoroughly annoyed; and Rose's reasoning, far from composing
his mind, had rendered it only the more anxious. Therefore, when
Marguerite returned into the parlour, with a somewhat heightened colour,
Alain affected to take no notice of her, and sate gazing moodily at the
fire.

"I have been plucking these roses," said the girl, offering Alain a
bunch of flowers wet with early dew.

He took them with a negligent air, stuck one of the buds into the band
of his broad-brimmed hat that lay on the table, and allowed the rest to
fall upon the rushes that strewed the stone floor. Marguerite, with a
slight and mocking grimace, watched the ill-tempered action without
taking any audible notice of it. Then resuming her seat, she took up her
wool and needles and applied herself to her interrupted knitting.

Meantime the page, apparently well satisfied with the circumstances of
his visit, including those of his parting from the fair Marguerite,