"Sir," said Raoul, "I believe that lovers have rarely been remarkable for sanity; and it is an immemorial custom among them to praise the object of their desires with fitting rhymes. Conceive, sir, that in your youth, had you been accorded the love of so fair a lady, you yourself had scarcely done otherwise. For I doubt if your blood runs so thin as yet that you have quite forgot young Raymond d'Arnaye and the gracious ladies whom he loved,--I think that your heart must needs yet treasure the memories of divers moonlit nights, even such as this, when there was a great silence in the world, and the nested trees were astir with desire of the dawn, and your waking dreams were vext with the singular favor of some woman's face. It is in the name of that young Raymond I now appeal to you."
"H'm!" said the Sieur d'Arnaye. "As I understand it, you appeal on the ground that you were coerced by the moonlight and led astray by the bird-nests in my poplar-trees; and you desire me to punish your accomplices rather than you."
"Sir,--" said Raoul.
Sieur Raymond snarled. "You young dog, you know that in the most prosaic breast a minor poet survives his entombment,--and you endeavor to make capital of the knowledge. You know that I have a most sincere affection for your father, and have even contracted since you came to Arnaye more or less tolerance for you,--which emboldens you, my friend, to keep me out of a comfortable bed at this hour of the night with an idiotic discourse of moonlight and dissatisfied shrubbery! As it happens, I am not a lank wench in her first country dance. Remember that, Raoul de Frison, and praise the good God who gave me at birth a very placable disposition! There is not a seigneur in all France, save me, but would hang you at the crack of that same dawn for which you report your lackadaisical trees to be whining; but the quarrel will soon be Monsieur de Puysange's, and I prefer that he settle it at his own discretion. I content myself with advising you to pester my niece no more."
Raoul spoke boldly. "She loves me," said he, standing very erect.
Sieur Raymond glanced at Matthiette, who sat with downcast head. "H'm!" said he. "She moderates her transports indifferently well. Though, again, why not? You are not an ill-looking lad. Indeed, Monsieur de Frison, I am quite ready to admit that my niece is breaking her heart for you. The point on which I wish to dwell is that she weds Monsieur de Puysange early to-morrow morning."