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Perhaps, after all,
she did not care particularly for Mr. Raleigh. He was much older than
she; he was quite grave, sometimes satirical; she knew nothing about
him; she was slightly afraid of him. On the whole, if she consulted her
taste, she would have preferred a younger hero; she would rather be the
Fornarina for a Raffaello; she had fancied her name sweetening the songs
of Giraud Riquier, the last of the Troubadours; and she did not believe
Beatrice Portinari to be so excellent among women, so different from
other girls, that her name should have soared so far aloft with that
escutcheon of the golden wing on a field azure. "But they say that there
cannot be two epic periods in a nation's literature," thought Marguerite
hurriedly; "so that a man who might have been Homer once will be nothing
but a gentleman now." And at this point, having decided that Mr. Raleigh
was fully worth unlimited love, she added to her resolves a desire for
content with whatever amount of friendly affection he chose to bestow
upon her.


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