The Convent Bird

Young knight, whatever that dost armes professe,
And through long labours huntest after fame,
Beware of fraud, beware of ficklenesse,
In choice and change of thy beloved dame.
Spenser, FAERY QUEENE

Berenger' mind was relieved, even while his vanity was mortified,
when the Chevalier and his son came the next day to bring him the
formal letter requesting the Pope's annulment of his marriage.
After he had signed it, it was to be taken to Eustacie, and so soon
as he should attain his twenty-first year he was to dispose of
Chateau Leurre, as well as of his claim to the ancestral castle in
Picardy, to his cousin Narcisse, and thus become entirely free to
transfer his allegiance to the Queen of England.

It was a very good thing--that he well knew; and he had a strong
sense of virtue and obedience, as he formed with his pen the words
in all their fullness, Henri Beranger Eustache, Baron de Ribaumont
et Seigneur de Leurre.

He could not help wondering whether the lady
who looked at him so admiringly really preferred such a mean-looking
little fop as Narcisse, whether she were afraid of his English home
and breeding, or whether all this open coquetry were really the court
manners of ladies towards gentlemen, and he had been an absolute
simpleton to be flattered. Any way, she would have been a most
undesirable wife, and he was well quit of her; but he did feel a
certain lurking desire that, since the bonds were cut and he was no
longer in danger from her, he might see her again, carry home a
mental inventory of the splendid beauties he had renounced, and
decide what was the motive that actuated her in rejecting his own
handsome self.