This Mademoiselle Gueldmar, as he
called her, was by no means stupid--she was not a mere moving statue of
lovely flesh and perfect color whose outward beauty was her only
recommendation,--she was, on the contrary, of a most superior
intelligence,--she had read much and thought more,--and the dignified
elegance of her manner, and bearing would have done honor to a queen.
After all, thought Duprez musingly, the social creeds of Paris _might_
be wrong--it was just possible! There might be women who were
womanly,--there might be beautiful girls who were neither vain nor
frivolous,--there might even be creatures of the feminine sex, besides
whom a trained Parisian coquette would seem nothing more than a painted
fiend of the neuter gender. These were new and startling considerations
to the feather-light mind of the Frenchman,--and unconsciously his fancy
began to busy itself with the old romantic histories of the ancient
French chivalry, when faith, and love, and loyalty, kept white the
lilies of France, and the stately courtesy and unflinching pride of the
_ancien regime_ made its name honored throughout the world.
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