He laughed as he spoke, but he spoke in earnest.  “Knowledge!  I want all kinds of knowledge.  I know law, and I know what to do with a jury, and I know tobacco—­worse luck!—­but I don’t know the little things, the little gracious things that—­that make a man liked.  If I were a Federalist, and if I didn’t know so much about tobacco, I would go, Mr. Pincornet, to your dancing class at Fontenoy!” He laughed again.  “I can’t do that, can I?  The Churchills would all draw their swords.  Come!  I have little time and few chances to acquire that which I have longed for always,—­the grace of life.  Teach me how to enter a drawing-room; how to—­how to dance with a lady!”

His tone, imperious when he demanded the Marseillaise, was now genial, softened to a mellow persuasiveness.  Mr. Pincornet shrugged his shoulders.  He had been offended, but he was not unmagnanimous, and he had a high sense of the importance of his art.  He had seen in France what came of uncultivated law-givers.  If a man wanted knowledge, far be it from Achille de Pincornet to withhold his handful!  “You cannot learn in a night,” he said, “but I will show you the steps.”

“I can manage a country dance, a reel or Congo,” said Rand simply.  “I want to know politer things.”

They left the terrace, went into the drawing-room, and lit the candles.  The floor, rubbed each morning until it shone, gave back the heart-shaped flames.  The slight furniture they pushed aside.  The dancing master tucked his violin under his chin, drew the bow across the strings, and began the lesson.

The candles burned clear, strains of the minuet de la cour rose and fell in the ample room, the member from Albemarle and Mr. Pincornet stepped, bent, and postured with the gravity of Indian sachems.  The one moved through the minuet in top-boots and riding-coat, the other taught in what had been a red brocade.  Rand, though tall and largely built, moved with the step and carriage, light and lithe, of one who has used the woods; the Frenchman had the suppleness of his profession and of an ancient courtier.  Now they bowed one to the other, now each to an imaginary lady.  Mr. Pincornet issued directions in the tone of a general ordering a charge, his pupil obeyed implicitly.  In the silent house, raised high on a mountain-top above a sleeping world, in the lit room with many open windows, through which poured the fragrance of spring, they practised until midnight the minuet de la cour. The hour struck; they gravely ceased to dance, and after five minutes spent in mutual compliments, closed the long windows and put out the superfluous lights, then said good-night, and, bedroom candle in hand, repaired each to his own chamber.  Rand had risen at dawn, and his day had been a battlefield, but before he lay down in the dimity-hung, four-post bed he sat long at the window of his small, white, quiet room.  The moon shone brightly; the air was soft and sweet.  In the distance a lamb bleated, then all was still again.  The young man rested his chin on his hand, and studied the highest stars.  That day a milestone had been passed.  He saw his road stretching far, far before him, and he saw certain fellow travellers, but the companion whom his heart cried for he could not see.