Not that Gaston de Trélan was by any means a profligate. He was difficult in his preferences, and she knew well how violently—and for the most part unsuccessfully—he was run after in society. “Saint-Charmant” was the current play on his name in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain and of the Marais. Nor did he ever fail in attentions to her; nay, as the years went on, she knew that she had his respect always; intermittently, perhaps, almost his love. Of the freedom, not to say licence, which a lady in her high position could claim, she herself had not taken the shadow of an advantage. And yet, though she was herself so unsullied, and though she was also a very proud woman, she would have passed over in her husband what her world, so far from censuring, almost demanded. As youth fell away from both of them she certainly felt it less, and the Duc’s love affairs, never scandalously frequent, became almost negligible. It was not that trait in him which had cut the deepest; it was the gradual conviction that the high promise of his character and gifts would never be fulfilled. Her love for him, which had survived unfaithfulness, was ambitious, and not without reason. More than most of his line Gaston de Trélan had capacity, but unluckily there ran in his blood far more than his share of the indolent pride of the Saint-Chamans. If he could not do a thing supremely well, he would not do it at all. Indeed, he appeared to see no reason why he should trouble to do anything, in a world where all was at his feet, but be uniformly charming, gay, keenwitted—and supremely wilful. Like most young nobles he had had a military training, and had been given a colonelcy at the age of twenty; but not one second more than the obligatory four months of the twelve would he ever spend with his regiment. Indeed he resigned the burden of this command a few years after marriage. In later life the coveted position of First Gentleman of the Bedchamber had been almost forced upon him; fortunately that only entailed a year of service. Valentine, a Dame du Palais herself at the time, had no love for the long and tiring ceremonial of Court attendance, and if only he had accepted the post of ambassador to Sweden which was offered him about the same period, or that of governor of Provence for which he was proposed, she would have forgiven him had he refused the honour at Versailles. But there existed no influence strong enough to make him shoulder responsibility against his will.