"One more turn, fair Jacqueline?" suggested Marot, her partner in the dance.
"Not one!" she answered.
"Is that a dismissal?" he asked, lightly.
"'Tis for you to determine," retorted the maid.
"Modesty forbids I should interpret it to my desires," he returned, laughing, as he disappeared.
Tall, seeming straighter than usual, upon each cheek a festal rose, she stood before the duke's plaisant, inscrutable, as was her fashion, the scarf about her shoulders just stirring from the effects of the dance, and her lips parted to her hurried breathing.
"How did you like the ceremony?" she asked, quietly. "And did you know," she went on, without noticing the dark look in his eyes or awaiting his response, "the lance turned upon you to-day was not a 'weapon of courtesy'?"
"You mean it was directed by intention?" he asked indifferently.
"Not only that," she answered. "I mean that the disk had been removed and the point left bare."
"A mistake, of course," he said, with a peculiar smile.