As I had expected, Miss Desmond was present. She seemed to neglect none of the fashionable gayeties of the city, and to me she looked handsomer and statelier than ever. I wished for some look, some suggestion that we had been companions in danger, and that we were rather better friends than the others present; but she was cold and proud, and there was nothing in her manner to show that we had ever met, save in the formal atmosphere of the drawing-room.
"I hear, Lieutenant Melville," she said, "that you were in the unfortunate attack last night and fell into the hands of the rebels."
"Yes, Miss Desmond," I replied, "but good fortune succeeded bad fortune. I escaped from them in the darkness and the confusion, and am back in Philadelphia to lay my sword at your feet."
Such was the polite language of the time; but she received it with small relish, for she replied, with asperity,--
"You have barely escaped laying your sword at the feet of the rebels. Is not that enough of such exercise?"
Then some British officers, who heard her, laughed as if the gibe had no point for them.
I had no further opportunity for conversation with her until much later in the evening. The rooms were buzzing with the gossip of great events soon to occur; and though I sought not the part of a spy, and had no intent to put myself in such a position, I listened eagerly to the fragments of news that were sent about. This was not a matter of difficulty, for all were willing, even eager, to talk, and one could not but listen, without drawing comment and giving offence.
"'Tis reported," said Symington, a colonel, to me, "that the French king will despatch an army in great haste to America. But we shall not care for that--shall we, Melville? I, for one, am tired of playing hide-and-seek with the old fox, Mr. Washington, and should like to meet our ancient foes the French regulars in the open field. Then the fighting would be according to the rules as practised by the experts in Europe for many generations."
I thought to throw cold water upon him, and said I feared the Americans and the French allied might prove too strong for us; and as for the ancient rules of war, campaigns must be adapted to their circumstances and the nature of the country in which they are conducted. If the Americans alone, and that too when at least one-third of them were loyal to our cause, had been able to confine us to two or three cities practically in a state of besiegement, what were we to expect when the full might of the King of France arrived to help them?