From Robert Louis Stevenson's essay *An Apology for Idlers* (1881). Select the word that fits the blank. "JUST now, when every one is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of *lèse*-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of bravado and ______."

The blank is paired with *bravado* by *and*. Stevenson is again using the doubled-near-synonym pattern: the cry of the contented sounds (against the climate of universal industriousness) like loud, defiant boasting. "Gasconade" — boastful, swaggering talk — is the precise companion to *bravado*. The word derives from *Gascon*, the people of southwestern France who in French stereotype were famous for boastfulness (so a *gasconade* is a *Gascon's brag*). - "Modesty" reverses the pairing. - "Apology" doesn't fit beside *bravado* — although note that Stevenson's essay title is *An Apology for Idlers*, which uses *apology* in its older sense of *defence*, not *expression of regret*. - "Lethargy" describes inactivity, not the brash speech Stevenson is naming. This word is GRE-canonical: rare, evocative, and almost always traceable through the *bravado / boast* family.