"Do you think, Lieutenant Melville," she asked, turning a very thoughtful face towards me, "that this alliance will crush the English, or will the French intervention incite them to more strenuous efforts?"
"I think, Miss Desmond," I replied, piqued and suddenly determining to play my part as well as she, "that we will defeat Americans and French combined. You know we are accustomed to victory over the French."
"It is as you say," she said; "but when one reads French histories one finds French victories over the English also."
Which is very true, for it is a great gain to the glory of any country to have expert historians.
"We will underrate the French," I said, "for that would depreciate such triumphs as we have achieved in conflict with them."
"You make very little of Americans," she said. "Do you not think that you will also have to reckon with my misguided countrymen?"
"Mere louts," I said, thinking that at last I had found away to provoke her into an expression of her real opinions. "Perchance they might do something if they were trained and properly armed. But, as they are, they cannot withstand the British bayonet."
She looked at me with some curiosity, at which I was gratified, but, in imitation of her own previous example, I had discharged expression from my face.
"I had thought sometimes, Lieutenant Melville," she said, "that you had been moved to sympathy for these people, these rebels."
"Then you are much mistaken, Miss Desmond," I said, "although I hope I am not hard of heart. I am most loyal to the king, and hope for his complete triumph. How could I be otherwise, when you, who are American-born, set me such a noble example?"
"That is but the language of compliment, Lieutenant Melville," she said, "the courtly speech that you have learned in London drawing-rooms, and--pardon me for saying it--means nothing."
"It might mean nothing with other men," I said, losing somewhat of my self-possession, "but it does mean something with me."
"I do not understand you, Lieutenant Melville," she said, turning upon me an inquiring look. "You seem to speak in metaphors to-night."
"If so," I replied, "I may again plead your noble example. I do not understand you at all to-night, Miss Desmond."