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86 "Chide me if I seem too persistent. I have had so much of my own way in my life that I must be getting self-willed, I think. But don't make the chiding too harsh, Gerard. And do not keep me too long with this secret between us; I think I shall grow jealous of it. And—another condition," she laughed: "Do not tell any one before you tell me. I could not bear that."

"You are even harder to resist when you yield, Gabrielle, than when you plead, I fear."

"Am I? Then I will yield that I may plead. But I will wait your time. Of course I will. It is such delight to me to find you what you are, that all else is nothing. Besides, it is the first request you have made to me, and I should be a churl to refuse it. I did not think of that, and could be angry with myself for having forgotten it. I would not hear you now, if you were to offer to tell me." Her laugh at this was as that of a child in its pure delight.

"I am almost constrained to tempt you," he said, laughing in his turn.

"Nay, I have put my curiosity away—about that, but I have plenty left about you and your life and all you have done to change you from that boy Gerard whom I knew."

"I am very different from him, I trust. I have been a soldier since the time I was big enough to shoulder a musket."

"And have fought? Tell me, tell me. Where and with whom? I love to hear of brave deeds. I am a soldier's daughter, you know."

"I have been a courier of fortune, as all younger sons must be, and have carried arms under the Bourbons."

"We Malincourts, too, claim to be of the Bourbon blood; but—how do you mean—a younger son? I had not heard you had ever a brother, Gerard."

"All soldiers have brothers-in-arms," he replied,