"The General is dead?"

I did not dare to ask, Is he defeated? though from Doltaire's look I was
sure it was so, and a sickness crept through me, for at the moment that
seemed the end of our cause. But I made as if I had not heard his words
about my papers.

"Dead as a last years courtier, shifted from the scene," he replied;
"and having little now to do, we'll go play with the rat in our trap."

I would not have dared look towards Alixe, standing beside her mother
then, for the song in my blood was pitched too high, were it not that a
little sound broke from her. At that, I glanced, and saw that her face
was still and quiet, but her eyes were shining, and her whole body
seemed listening. I dared not give my glance meaning, though I wished to
do so. She had served me much, had been a good friend to me, since I was
brought a hostage to Quebec from Fort Necessity. There, at that little
post on the Ohio, France threw down the gauntlet, and gave us the great
Seven Years War. And though it may be thought I speak rashly, the lever
to spring that trouble had been within my grasp. Had France sat still
while Austria and Prussia quarreled, that long fighting had never been.
The game of war had lain with the Grande Marquise--or La Pompadour, as
she was called--and later it may be seen how I, unwillingly, moved her
to set it going.

Answering Monsieur Doltaire, I said stoutly, "I am sure he made a good
fight; he had gallant men."

"Truly gallant," he returned--"your own Virginians among others" (I
bowed); "but he was a blunderer, as were you also, monsieur, or you had
not sent him plans of our forts and letters of such candour. They have
gone to France, my captain."

Madame Duvarney seemed to stiffen in her chair, for what did this
mean but that I was a spy? and the young lady behind them now put her
handkerchief to her mouth as if to stop a word. To make light of the
charges against myself was the only thing, and yet I had little heart to
do so. There was that between Monsieur Doltaire and myself--a matter I
shall come to by-and-bye--which well might make me apprehensive.

"My sketch and my gossip with my friends," said I, "can have little
interest in France."

"My faith, the Grande Marquise will find a relish for them," he said
pointedly at me. He, the natural son of King Louis, had played the part
between La Pompadour and myself in the grave matter of which I spoke.
"She loves deciding knotty points of morality," he