CHAPTER II.
"Then 'gan the Palmer thus--'Most wretched man That to affections dost the bridle lend: In their beginnings they are weak and wan, But soon, through suffrance, growe to fearfull end; While they are weak, betimes with them contend.'" SPENSER.
MALTRAVERS went frequently to the house of Madame de Ventadour--it was open twice a week to the world, and thrice a week to friends.

Maltravers was soon of the latter class.

Madame de Ventadour had been in England in her childhood, for her parents had been _emigres_.

She spoke English well and fluently, and this pleased Maltravers; for though the French language was sufficiently familiar to him, he was like most who are more vain of the mind than the person, and proudly averse to hazarding his best thoughts in the domino of a foreign language.

We don't care how faulty the accent, or how incorrect the idiom, in which we talk nothings; but if we utter any of the poetry within us, we shudder at the risk of the most trifling solecism.
This was especially the case with Maltravers; for, besides being now somewhat ripened from his careless boyhood into a proud and fastidious man, he had a natural love for the Becoming.