The new-comer would not admit the possibility. "Impossible," he
protested. "Let me present myself. I am the Marquis de Chavernay. I am
very diverting. I can make love to more ladies at the same time than any
gentleman of my age at court."
Flora laughed. "Amiable accomplishment," she said, mockingly; but while
she mocked her quick eyes were carefully noting every particular of the
stranger's appearance, from the exquisite laces at his throat and wrists
to the jewels on his fingers, and finding all very much to her taste, and
the appropriate adornments for a young gentleman of so gallant a carriage
and so pleasantly impertinent a face. She had never cast her eyes upon
any youth in Madrid that had captivated her fancy so mightily, and she
thought to herself that when the time came for her to have a lover here
was the very lover she would choose. And then she remembered, with a
fluttering heart, that she was likely to become a great lady and the peer
of this fascinating dandiprat. As for him, he returned her gaze with a
bold stare of approval.
The Marquis de Chavernay agitated his dainty hands in delicate assurance.
"Agreeable, believe me," he asserted; and then asked: "Why has your
sister nymph retreated from the field? I could entertain the pair of
you."
As Flora's only answer to this assurance was a further, though perhaps
not very earnest, effort to enter the caravan, he restrained her with
appealing voice and gesture: "Please do not go."