'You have friends?'
'One at any rate, and that was restored to me by you,' and I glanced to the hilt of my sword.
'Man does not want a better; but you have another—here at Bidache, and I shall be in Paris soon, too, and—this place is dull. It kills me.'
'And yet you have not been here for three years—madame, are all the masques at the Louvre so attractive that you can desert your home, where your name is honoured as that of the King, for the follies of the court?'
I spoke with some bitterness, for I was sore at what I had heard at dinner, and she glanced up at me in a slight surprise. Then her lips parted in a half smile. 'Chevalier, will you answer me a question or so?'
'Why not?'
'You like gaiety, cheerfulness, light, do you not?'
'Assuredly.'
'You sometimes amuse yourself by gaming, do you not—and losing more than you can afford?'
I bowed in simple wonder.