yet sadly; for I knew long
after that a smother was at her heart then, foreshadowings of dangers
that would try her as few women are tried. Thank God that good women are
born with greater souls for trial than men; that, given once an anchor
for their hearts, they hold until the cables break.

When we were about to enter the dining-room, I saw, to my joy, Madame
incline towards Doltaire, and I knew that Alixe was for myself--though
her mother wished it little, I am sure. As she took my arm, her
finger-tips plunged softly into the velvet of my sleeve, giving me a
thrill of courage. I felt my spirits rise, and I set myself to carry
things off gaily, to have this last hour with her clear of gloom, for it
seemed easy to think that we should meet no more.

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. I was never before
so charmed with her swift intelligence, for I never had great nimbleness
of thought, nor power to make nice play with the tongue.

"You have been three years with us," suddenly said her father, passing
me the wine. "How time has flown! How much has happened!"

"Madame Cournal's husband has made three million francs," said Doltaire,
with dry irony and truth.

Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, stiffened; for, oblique as the suggestion
was, he did not care to have his daughter hear it.

"And Vaudreuil has sent bees buzzing to Versai