You are clumsy as a lout where a woman is concerned.

Were I in your place, I had taken her by storm three months ago, when first she came to us.

I had carried her out of Condillac, out of France, over the border into Savoy, where there are no Interdicts to plague you, and there I would have married her." Marius frowned darkly, but before he could speak, Tressan was insinuating a compliment to the Marquise.
"True, Marius," he said, with pursed lips.

"Nature has been very good to you in that she has made you the very counterpart of your lady mother.
You are as comely a gentleman as is to be found in France--or out of it." "Pish!" snapped Marius, too angered by the reflection cast upon his address, to be flattered by their praises of his beauty.

"It is an easy thing to talk; an easy thing to set up arguments when we consider but the half of a question.