It was the fashion, and no courtier resented this treatment,
which served both to reduce the men to the rank of puppets and to render
incredibly capricious the beauties who found themselves so powerful. All
the virility of Calvert's nature, all his new-world independence and his
sense of honor, was revolted by such a state of things. As he looked
around the company, there was not a man or woman to be seen of whom he
had not already heard some risque story or covert insinuation, and,
though he was no strait-laced Puritan, a sort of disdain for these
effeminate courtiers and a horror of these beautiful women took
possession of him.
"Decidedly," he thought to himself, "I am not fitted for this society,"
and so, somewhat out of conceit with his surroundings, and the Duchess
having withdrawn, he bade good-night to the company without waiting for
Mr. Morris, and took himself and his disturbed thoughts back to the
Legation.
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH MR. CALVERT'S GOOD INTENTIONS MISCARRY
It was in the midst of such society that Calvert encountered Madame de
St. Andre repeatedly during the remainder of the winter and early
spring.
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