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is a wonderful falconer,” I said.
    “So am I,” he said in that voice of his, which gave it a double meaning. He flicked his gaze over me, then spurred his horse forward to congratulate Annibal. In a flash, I was hating myself, thinking, oh, Sibille, how could you, with your natural delicacy of expression and intelligence of spirit, have failed so miserably to say something witty, something light and charming that would keep him by your side for a moment more of conversation? On paper, your words flow in a sparkling torrent; in life, you are as dumb as a stick.
    “A perfect day, my friend,” I heard him say to Annibal as we rode home past the green stalks of growing wheat, the swaying poplars, the peasant huts with their little vegetable gardens toward the pointed gables of the farm. My brother’s reply was lost in the breeze. But as we clattered through our courtyard gates, I heard him say, “You are a fortunate fellow, Annibal, to be pampered by all these good-looking sisters.” Again, Philippe d’Estouville flashed that delicious, knowing smile. How dazzling the glance of his amber eyes! How bold and charming and, God help me, young and vibrant, he seemed, compared to Thibault Villasse. But between us stood rank and favor, the demands of family, reputation, and honor. If only I dared…
    He had spurred his horse forward, and now was riding beside Laurette, telling her a joke, and she was laughing. I saw him glance at the pretty ankles she managed to let her riding habit reveal, mounted sideways as she was, her dainty little feet placed like a pair of jewels on the brightly painted board buckled to the left-hand side of her saddle. I saw she had worn her best pair of green stockings. And how on earth had she got them to stretch so tight? I looked down at my own big, bony feet where they sat beside each other. Betrayers, I thought. No one wants to see your legs in stockings, no matter how high your skirts get hiked. Maybe Villasse was all I deserved.
    You must imagine the mournful state to which I had descended, in complete contradiction to the glorious red of the setting sun, by the time mother greeted us at the door, with the unwelcome letter reminding me of my impending fate. Villasse had written that he had acquired, from a printer at Lyons, an entire stock of religious works, with hand-illuminated capitals, and ordered the new curtains for our wedding bed. Since there was now nothing lacking for my personal and spiritual comfort, there was no need to delay the joyous occasion of our nuptials any longer.
    “He’s enclosed a list of the books, Sibille. They seem quite numerous,” said mother, handing me the letter. Oh, dear, there they all were, pious sermons, works of the church fathers, a missal, a book of hours. I thought they’d take longer to find than that. He must have sent his clerk directly there.
    “B-but I haven’t finished embroidering my wedding linens yet,” I stammered. Too soon, much too soon.
    That evening we played tric-trac after supper, and then sang harmonies about the table. But the vast dejection of spirit I was experiencing weighed down my heart and spoiled my voice. So downcast was I that I did not even offer to read the first pages of my Dialogue , although they had been received so successfully at the last artistic afternoon I had attended at my cousin Matheline’s. Somehow, it was all the worse watching the dashing stranger dote upon Laurette, who wound her golden curls about one finger while she sang, looking up from beneath her eyelashes at him. How fascinated she seemed with every word that Philippe d’Estouville said: about life at court, the politics and favoritism in M. de Damville’s company, and blow-by-blow descriptions of every one of his twelve celebrated duels, in which he had never failed to kill his man.
    “I have such a difficulty at court, you see—so many ladies are attracted to me—their husbands, so jealous, but with each affair of honor, the ladies