"Hush, hush, Matthieu!" cried Raoul, "you forget that we were mere children at that time; such early troth plightings are foolish ceremonials at the best; beside, do you not see that you are condemning me also as well as the lady?"
"Oh, that is different--that is quite different!" replied the old steward, "gentlemen may be permitted to take some little liberties which with ladies are not allowable. But that a young demoiselle should break her contract in such wise is disgraceful."
"Well, well, we will not argue it to-night, Matthieu," said the young soldier, rising and looking out of the great oriel window over the sunshiny park; "I believe I will go and walk out for an hour or two and refresh my recollections of old times. It is a lovely afternoon as I ever beheld in France or elsewhere."
And with the word he took up his rapier which lay on a slab near the table at which he had been sitting, and hung it to his belt, and then throwing on his plumed hat carelessly, without putting on his cloak, strolled leisurely out into the glorious summer evening.
For a little while he loitered on the esplanade, gazing out toward the sea, the ridgy waves of which were sparkling like emeralds tipped with diamonds in the grand glow of the setting sun. But ere long he turned thence with a sigh, called up perhaps by some fancied similitude between that bright and boundless ocean, desolate and unadorned even by a single passing sail, and his own course of life so desert, friendless and uncompanioned.
Thence he strolled listlessly through the fine garden, inhaling the rare odors of the roses, hundreds of which bloomed on every side of him, there in low bushes, there in trim standards, and not a few climbing over tall trellices and bowery alcoves in one mass of living bloom. He saw the happy swallow darting and wheeling to and fro through the pellucid azure, in pursuit of their insect prey. He heard the rich mellow notes of the blackbirds and thrushes, thousands and thousands of which were warbling incessantly in the cool shadow of the yew and holly hedges. But his diseased and unhappy spirit took no delight in the animated sounds, or summer-teeming sights of rejoicing nature. No, the very joy and merriment, which seemed to pervade all nature, animate or inanimate around him, while he himself had no present joys to elevate, no future promises to cheer him, rendered him, if that were possible, darker and gloomier, and more mournful.