As Played at Paris, in the May of 1750  
"Cette amoureuse ardeur qui dans les coeurs s'excite N'est point, comme l'on sçait, un effet du merite; Le caprice y prend part, et, quand quelqu'un nous plaist, Souvent nous avons peine à dire pourquoy c'est. Mais on vois que l'amour se gouverne autrement."
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
 
DUC DE PUYSANGE, somewhat given to women, and now and then to good-fellowship, but a man of excellent disposition.
 
MARQUIS DE SOYECOURT, his cousin, and loves de Puysange's wife.
DUKE OF ORMSKIRK.
 
DUCHESSE DE PUYSANGE, a precise, but amiable and patient, woman.
 
ANTOINE, LACKEYS to de Puysange, Etc.
SCENE
 
Paris, mostly within and about the Hôtel de Puysange.
HEART OF GOLD
 
PROEM:—Necessitated by a Change of Scene
 
You are not to imagine that John Bulmer debated an exposure of de Soyecourt. "Live and let live" was the Englishman's axiom; the exuberant Cazaio was dead, his men were either slain or dispersed, and the whole tangle of errors—with judicious reservations—had now been unravelled to Gaston's satisfaction. And Claire de Puysange was now Duchess of Ormskirk. Why, then, meddle with Destiny, who appeared, after all, to possess a certain sense of equity?
 
So Ormskirk smiled as he presently went about Paris, on his own business, and when he and Louis de Soyecourt encountered each other their friendliness was monstrous in its geniality.
 
They were now one and all in Paris, where Ormskirk's marriage had been again, and more publicly, solemnized. De Puysange swore that his sister was on this occasion the lovelie............