She looked up with a blush, for just at that moment she was wondering what a certain fair-haired, long-limbed young giant was doing in the outposts or elsewhere, and the voice recalled her to herself with a feeling of self-reproach.
“I am afraid,” she answered, “my thoughts would have little interest for you. A woman´s head is ever full of idle thoughts.”
“Not the wise head of my cousin; it is only the men of her family who give themselves to folly.”
“The Vicomte de Laprade for example?”
“Truly he is a chief offender, but he is growing wise and sober and hardly knows himself. He has not smiled for a week, and thinks he never will be able to smile again. Even his cousin Jasper has ceased to amuse him.”
“You are greatly to be pitied,” she said with a smile. “But it is not duller than you would have found Vincennes. There too you would have grown wiser.”
“Nay, I think not. A long time ago--it seems like years, I grow so old--I was for six months a prisoner in the Bastille, and when His Majesty relented and I returned to court I was no wiser than before. My folly only took another turn. But then I had not found a friend to warn, nor a counsellor like my fair cousin to teach me better things.”
“I dare say you deserved your punishment. Now tell me something of your offence.”
“Indeed, I hardly know myself, but I think it was--yes, I think it was a lady. By accident I trod on her train in a minuet and she refused to accept my apology. I could only smile and do penance for my clumsiness, for one may not lightly offend a great lady like Madame de----”
“Madame de----?”