As we passed into the dining-room, I said, as I had said the
first time I went to dinner in her father's house, "Shall we be
flippant, or grave?"
I guessed that it would touch her. She raised her eyes to mine
and answered, "We are grave; let us seem flippant."
In those days I had a store of spirits. I was seldom dismayed,
for life had been such a rough-and-tumble game that I held to
cheerfulness and humour as a hillsman to his broadsword, knowing it
the greatest of weapons with a foe, and the very stone and mortar
of friendship. So we were gay, touching lightly on events around us,
laughing at gossip of the doorways (I in my poor French), casting
small stones at whatever drew our notice, not forgetting a throw or
two at Chateau Bigot, the Intendant's country house at Charlesbourg,
five miles away, where base plots were hatched, reputations soiled,
and all clean things dishonoured. But Alixe, the sweetest soul
France ever gave the world, could not know all I knew; guessing
only at heavy carousals, cards, song, and raillery, with far-off
hints of feet lighter than fit in cavalry boots dancing among the
glasses on the table.
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