Nevertheless, the evil existed and must be recognised and put up with. The pair were engaged and within a month they would marry.
As for the second daughter, Louise, her father's favourite, his pride and joy--for not only was she a little taller, a little stronger, a little more skilful with the rapier than her sister, but also possessed the crowning glory, in his eyes, of a deep contralto speaking-voice, which added a point to her score of manly virtues--Louise, too, though Pierre guessed it not, had fallen a victim to the universal weakness of womankind; she, too, had lost her heart to a man. Louise did not tell her father this; she did not even tell Marie, her sister; it is probable that she did not whisper it even to her own heart of hearts, and yet she knew well that it was so: she was in love.
After all, it was no wonder that she should have become attracted by one or other of the many handsome and manly youths who came either to learn to fence or to practise the art, already learned, by engaging in a set-to with one of Pierre's accomplished daughters. Louise was acquainted with half a hundred of the most attractive young officers in Paris. Nearly every one of Napoleon's marshals had visited Pierre's establishment, nay, even the Emperor himself had been there and had laughed and applauded the skill of the two _demoiselles d'armes_. He had spoken to Louise and praised her to her face which was nearer the sky than his own by four inches at least.
Yet never, until a certain afternoon in this very year of 1812, had Louise been conscious of the quickening of her pulses in response to the instincts of womanhood; for though assuredly there were many of the gilded youths of her acquaintance who had wasted upon her the eloquence of the eye, of the whispering lips, of the tightened hand--all these things had left Louise as they found her, calm and unmoved, and wondering, maybe, at the foolishness of men who could waste time upon such silly matters as love-making and love-talking.
The fatal afternoon was that upon which young Baron Henri d'Estreville first visited the fencing establishment in order to see for himself the skill of the two girls with whose fame as swordswomen all Paris was ringing.