climbing.' He paused a minute, and then added, 'A year ago I thought
he had touched you, this Britisher, with his raw humour and manners;
but, my faith, how swiftly does a woman's fancy veer!' At that I
said calmly to him, 'You must remember that then he was not thought
so base.' 'Yes, yes,' he replied; 'and a woman loves to pity the
captive, whatever his fault, if he be presentable and of some notice
or talent. And Moray has gifts,' he went on. I appeared all at once
to be offended. 'Veering, indeed! a woman's fancy! I think you might
judge women better. You come from high places, Monsieur Doltaire,
and they say this and that of your great talents and of your power
at Versailles, but what proof have we had of it? You set a girl
down with a fine patronage, and you hint at weapons to cut off my
cousin the Governor and the Intendant from their purposes; but how
do we know you can use them, that you have power with either the
unnoticeable woman or the great men?' I knew very well it was a bold
move. He suddenly turned to me, in his cruel eyes a glittering kind
of light, and said, 'I suggest no more than I can do with those
"great men"; and as for the woman, the slave can not be patron--I am
the slave. I thought not of power before; but now that I do, I will
live up to my thinking. I seem idle, I am not; purposeless, I am
not; a gamester, I am none. I am a sportsman, and I will not leave
the field till all the hunt be over. I seem a trifler, yet I have
persistency. I am no romanticist, I have no great admiration for
myself, and yet when I set out to hunt a woman honestly, be sure
I shall never back to kennel till she is mine or I am done for
utterly. Not by worth nor by deserving, but by unending patience and
diligence--that shall be my motto. I shall devote to the chase every
art that I have learned or known by nature. So there you have me,
mademoiselle. Since you have brought me to the point, I will unfurl
my flag.... I am--your--hunter,' he went on, speaking with slow,