Bardelys the Magnificent | Page 6

his wine.
"Your successes, Bardelys, render you vain, and of vanity is

presumption born," he replied contemptuously.
"See!" I cried, appealing to the company. "Observe how he seeks to
evade replying! Nay, but you shall confess your clumsiness."
"A clumsiness," murmured La Fosse drowsily, "as signal as that which
attended Pan's wooing of the Queen of Lydia."
"I have no clumsiness to confess," he answered hotly, raising his voice.
"It is a fine thing to sit here in Paris, among the languid, dull, and
nerveless beauties of the Court, whose favours are easily won because
they look on dalliance as the best pastime offered them, and are eager
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!" exclaimed another. "This good Chatellerault has lost both
heart and head to her."
Chatellerault glanced at the speaker with an eye in which anger
smouldered.
"You have said it," I agreed. "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, Comte? Bah! In a lover's mind,
perhaps, or in the pages of some crack-brained poet's fancies; but
nowhere else in this dull world of ours."
He made a gesture 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 won with ease, and she
surrenders. Believe me, Chatellerault, I am a younger man than you by
full five years, yet in experience I am a generation 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 know a woman, go to
Lavedan, Monsieur le Marquis. If you would have your army of
amorous wiles suffer a defeat at last, go employ it against the citadel of
Roxalanne de Lavedan's heart. If you would be humbled in your pride,
betake yourself to Lavedan."
"A challenge!" roared a dozen voices. "A challenge, Bardelys!"
"Mais voyons," I deprecated, with a laugh, "would you have me
journey into Languedoc and play at wooing this embodiment of all the
marvels of womanhood for the sake of making good my argument? Of
your charity, gentlemen, insist no further."
"The never-failing excuse of the boaster," sneered Chatellerault, "when
desired to make good his boast."
"Monsieur conceives that I have made a boast?" quoth I, keeping my
temper.
"Your words suggested one - else I do not know the meaning of words.
They suggested that where I have failed you could succeed, if you had
a mind to try. I have challenged you, Bardelys. I challenge you again.
Go about this wooing as you will; dazzle the lady with your wealth and

your magnificence, with your servants, your horses, your equipages;
and all the splendours you can command; yet I make bold to say that
not a year of your scented attentions and most insidious wiles will bear
you fruit. Are you sufficiently challenged?"
"But this is rank frenzy!" I protested. "Why should I undertake this
thing?"
"To prove me wrong," he taunted me. "To prove me clumsy. Come,
Bardelys, what of your spirit?"
"I confess I would do much to afford you the proof you ask. But to take
a wife! Pardi! That is much indeed!"
"Bah!" he sneered. "You do well to draw back You are wise to avoid
discomfiture. This lady is not for you. When she is won, it will be by
some bold and gallant gentleman, and by no mincing squire of dames,
no courtly coxcomb, no fop