"We will drink to her bright eyes," exclaimed De Pean, filling his glass until it ran over, "first in beauty and worthy to be first in place in New France--yea, or Old France either! and he is a heathen who will not drink this toast!"
"Le Gardeur will not drink it! Neither would I, in his place," replied Emeric de Lantagnac, too drunk now to mind what he said.
"I would drink to the bright eyes of no woman who had played me the trick Angelique has played upon Le Gardeur!"
"What trick has she played upon me?" repeated Le Gardeur, with a touch of anger.
"Why, she has jilted you, and now flies at higher game, and nothing but a prince of the blood will satisfy her!"
"Does she say that, or do you invent it?" Le Gardeur was almost choking with angry feelings. Emeric cared little what he said, drunk or sober. He replied gravely,--"Oh, all the women in the city say she said it! But you know, Le Gardeur, women will lie of one another faster than a man can count a hundred by tens."
De Pean, while enjoying the vexation of Le Gardeur, feared that the banter of Emeric might have an ill effect on his scheme. "I do not believe it, Le Gardeur;" said he, "Angelique is too true a woman to say what she means to every jealous rival. The women hope she has jilted you. That counts one more chance for them, you know! Is not that feminine arithmetic, Le Mercier?" asked he.
"It is at the Friponne," replied Le Mercier, laughing. "But the man who becomes debtor to Angelique des Meloises will never, if I know her, be discharged out of her books, even if he pay his debt."
"Ay, they say she never lets a lover go, or a friend either," replied De Pean. "I have proof to convince Le Gardeur that Angelique has not jilted him. Emeric reports women's tattle, nothing more."
Le Gardeur was thoroughly roused. "Par Dieu!" exclaimed he, "my affairs are well talked over in the city, I think! Who gave man or woman the right to talk of me thus?"
"No one gave them the right. But the women claim it indefeasibly from Eve, who commenced talking of Adam's affairs with Satan the first time her man's back was turned."
"Pshaw! Angelique des Meloises is as sensible as she is beautiful: she never said that! No, par Dieu! she never said to a man or woman that she had jilted me, or gave reason for others to say so!"
Le Gardeur in his vexation poured out with nervous hand a large glass of pure brandy and drank it down. It had an instant effect.
His forehead flushed, and his eyes dilated with fresh fire. "She never said that!" repeated he fiercely. "I would swear it on my mother's head, she never did! and would kill any man who would dare affirm it of her!"
"Right! the way to win a woman is never to give her up," answered De Pean. "Hark you, Le Gardeur, all the city knows that she favored you more than any of the rest of her legion of admirers. Why are you moping away your time here at Tilly when you ought to be running down your game in the city?"
"My Atalanta is too fleet of foot for me, De Pean," replied Le Gardeur. "I have given up the chase. I have not the luck of Hippomanes."
"That is, she is too fast!" said De Pean mockingly. "But have you thrown a golden apple at her feet to stop your runaway nymph?"
"I have thrown myself at her feet, De Pean! and in vain," said Le Gardeur, gulping down another cup of brandy.
De Pean watched the effect of the deep potations which Le Gardeur now poured down to quench the rising fires kindled in his breast.
"Come here, Le Gardeur," said he; "I have a message for you which I would not deliver before, lest you might be angry."
De Pean led him into a recess of the room. "You are wanted in the city," whispered he. "Angelique sent this little note by me. She put it in my hand as I was embarking for Tilly, and blushed redder than a rose as she did so. I promised to deliver it safely to you."
It was a note quaintly folded in a style Le Gardeur recognized well, inviting him to return to the city. Its language was a mixture of light persiflage and tantalizing coquetry,--she was dying of the dullness of the city! The late ball at the Palace had been a failure, lacking the presence of Le Gardeur! Her house was forlorn without the visits of her dear friend, and she wanted his trusty counsel in an affair of the last importance to her welfare and happiness!
"That girl loves you, and you may have her for the asking!" continued De Pean, as Le Gardeur sat crumpling the letter up in his hand. De Pean watched his countenance with the eye of a basilisk.
"Do you think so?" asked Le Gardeur eagerly. "But no, I have no more faith in woman; she does not mean it!"