in the words of that fool La Fosse.

"Messieurs," he lisped, with that fatuousness he affected, and with
his eye fixed coldly upon Chatellerault, "I have a toast for you."
He rose carefully to his feet - he had arrived at that condition in
which to move with care is of the first importance. He shifted his
eye from the Count to his glass, which stood half empty. He signed
to a lacquey to fill it. "To the brim, gentlemen," he commanded.
Then, in the silence that ensued, he attempted to stand with one
foot on the ground and one on his chair; but encountering
difficulties of balance, he remained upright - safer if less
picturesque.

"Messieurs, I give you the most peerless, the most beautiful, the
most difficult and cold lady in all France. I drink to those her
thousand graces, of which Fame has told us, and to that greatest
and most vexing charm of all - her cold indifference to man. I
pledge you, too, the swain whose good fortune it maybe to play
Endymion to this Diana.

"It will need," pursued La Fosse, who dealt much in mythology and
classic lore - "it will need an Adonis in beauty, a Mars in valour,
an Apollo in song, and a very Eros in love to accomplish it. And I
fear me," he hiccoughed, "that it will go unaccomplished, since the
one man in all France on whom we have based our hopes has failed.
Gentlemen, to your feet! I give you the matchless Roxalanne de
Lavedan!"

Such amusement as I felt was tempered by apprehension. I shot a
swift glance at Chatellerault to mark how he took this pleasantry