‘You only made bad worse by reflecting on Maurepas’s riding,’ said Dillon, smiling.
‘Par Dieu! I never thought of that,’ broke in Fitzgerald.
‘Then there was something occurred at court, wasn’t there?’
‘Oh, a mere trifle. He could not dance the second figure in the minuet with the Princesse de Clèves, and the Queen called me to take his place.’
‘Worse than the affair of the horse, far worse,’ muttered Dillon; ‘Maurepas cannot forgive you either.’
‘I shall assuredly not ask him, sir,’ was the prompt rejoinder.
‘And then you laughed at his Italian, didn’t you? The “Nonce” said that you caught him up in a line he had misquoted.’
‘He asked me himself if he were right, and I told him he was not; but I never laughed at his mistake.’
‘They said you did, and that the Princesse de Lamballe made you repeat the story. No matter, it was still another item in the score he owes you.’
‘I am led by these remarks of yours to suppose that you have latterly bestowed some interest in what has befallen me, Count: am I justified in this belief?’