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"I mind when you
talked less sweetly."
He shrugged a shoulder. "That man is lost who keeps one mind
concerning woman. I will trust the chastity of no woman, yet I will
trust her virtue--if I have her heart. They a foolish tribe, and
all are vulnerable in their vanity. They of consequence to man, of
no consequence in state matters. When they meddle there, we have La
Pompadour and war with England, and Captain Moray in the Bastile of
New France."
"You come from a court, monsieur, which believes in nothing, not
even in itself."
"I come from a court," he rejoined, "which has made a gospel of
artifice, of frivolity a creed; buying the toys for folly with the
savings of the poor. His most Christian Majesty has set the fashion
of continual silliness and universal love. He begets children in
the peasant's oven and in the chamber of Charlemagne alike. And we
are all good subjects of the King. We are brilliant, exquisite,
brave, and naughty; and for us there is no to-morrow."
"Nor for France," I suggested.
He laughed, as he rolled a kernel of parched corn on his tongue.


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