Never had my heart beat
higher or more proudly than as I now hurried through the streets,
avoiding such groups as were abroad in them, and intent only on
observing the proper turnings. Never in any moment of triumph in
after days, in love or war, did anything like the exhilaration,
the energy, the spirit, of those minutes come back to me. I had
a woman's badge in my cap--for the first time--the music of her
voice in my ears. I had a magic ring on my finger: a talisman
on my arm. My sword was at my side again. All round me lay a
misty city of adventures, of danger and romance, full of the
richest and most beautiful possibilities; a city of real
witchery, such as I had read of in stories, through which those
fairy gifts and my right hand should guide me safely. I did not
even regret my brothers, or our separation. I was the eldest.
It was fitting that the cream of the enterprise should be
reserved for me, Anne de Caylus. And to what might it not lead?
In fancy I saw myself already a duke and peer of France--already
I held the baton.
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