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"Your successes, Bardelys, render you vain, and of vanity is presumption born," he replied conte to the co! Nay, but you shall confess your clumsiness"
"A clunal as that which attended Pan's wooing of the Queen of Lydia"
"I have no clu his voice "It is a fine thing to sit here in Paris, auid, dull, and nerveless beauties of the Court, whose favours are easily won because they look on dalliance as the best pastier for such opportunities of it as you fleering coxcombs will afford them But this Mademoiselle de Lavedan is of a vastly different mettle She is a woman; not a doll She is flesh and blood; not sawdust, powder, and vermilion She has a heart and a will; not a spirit corrupted by vanity and licence"
La Fosse burst into a laugh
"Hark! O, hark!" he cried, "to the apostle of the chaste!"
"Saint Gris!" exclaiood Chatellerault has lost both heart and head to her"
Chatellerault glanced at the speaker with an eye in which anger sreed "He has fallen her victim, and so his vanity translates her into a compound of perfections Does such a woman as you have described exist, Coes of some crack-brained poet's fancies; but nowhere else in this dull world of ours"
He esture of impatience
"You have been clumsy, Chatellerault," I insisted
"You have lacked address The woman does not live that is not to be won by any man who sets his mind to do it, if only he be of her station and have the means to maintain her in it or raise her to a better A woman's love, sir, is a tree whose root is vanity Your attentions flatter her, and predispose her to capitulate Then, if you but wisely choose your time to deliver the attack, and do so with the necessary adroitness--nor is overmuch demanded--the battle is ith ease, and she surrenders Believe er eneration older, and I talk of what I know"
He sneered heavily "If to have begun your career of dalliance at the age of eighteen with an amour that resulted in a scandal be your title to experience, I agree," said he "But for the rest, Bardelys, for all your fine talk of conquering women, believe me when I tell you that in all your life you have never met a woman, for I deny the claim of these Court creatures to that title If you would knooo to Lavedan, Monsieur le Marquis If you would have your arainst the citadel of Roxalanne de Lavedan's heart If you would be humbled in your pride, betake yourself to Lavedan"