lace on
their coats, and some even----' here he stopped confused and abashed,
when a deep voice called out--

'And some even who have no coats at all. Is it not so you would say,
Chevalier?'

'I accept the words as my own, though I did not use them,' cried Gerald
boldly.

'There is but one explanation of such opinions as these,' broke in
Maurepas; 'the Chevalier de Fitzgerald has been keeping other company
than ours of late.'

Gerald rose angrily to reply, but ere he could utter a word an arm was
slipped within his own, and a deep voice said--

'Come away from this--come to my quarters, Gerald, and let us talk over
the matter.' It was Count Dillon, the oldest captain of the corps, who
spoke, and Gerald obeyed him without a word of remonstrance.

'Don't you perceive, boy,' said the Count, as soon as they reached the
open air, 'that we Irish are in a position of no common difficulty here?
They expect us to stand by an order of nobility that we do not belong
to. To the king and the royal family you and I will be as loyal and true
as the best among them; but what do we care--what can we care--for the
feuds between noble and bourgeois? If this breach grows wider every day,
it was none of our making; as little does it concern us how to repair
it.'

'I never sought for admission into this corps,' said Gerald angrily.
'Madame de Bauffremont promised me my grade in the dragoons, and then
I should have seen service. Two squadrons of the very regiment I should
have joined are already off to America, and instead of that, I am here
to lounge away my life, less a soldier than a lackey!'

'Say nothing to disparage the Garde, young fellow, or I shall forget
we are countrymen,' said Dillon sternly; and then, as if sorry for the
severity of the rebuke, added, 'Have only a little patience, and you can
effect an exchange. It is what I have long desired myself.'

'You too, Count?' cried Gerald eagerly.

'Ay, boy. This costly life just suits my pocket as ill as its indolence
agrees with my taste. As soldiers, we can be as good men as they,
but neither you nor I have three hundred thousand livres a year, like
Maurepas or Noailles. We cannot lose ten rouleaux of Louis every evening
at ombre, and sleep soundly after; our valets do not drink Pomard at
dinner, nor leave our service rich with two years of robbery.'

'I never play,' said Gerald gravely.

'So I remarked,' continued Dillon; 'you lived like one whose means did
not war