oiselle Crystal," he said again, "have you not one single kind
word for me?"

"A kind word?" she retorted almost involuntarily, "after such an
outrage?"

"I am a soldier," he urged, "and had to do my duty."

"You were a soldier once, M. de Marmont--a soldier of the King. Now you
are only a deserter."

"A soldier of the Emperor, Mademoiselle, of the man who led France to
victory and to glory, and will do so again, now that he has come back
into his own once more."

"You and I, M. de Marmont," she said coldly, "look at France from
different points of view. This is neither the hour nor the place to
discuss our respective sentiments. I pray you, allow me to join my aunt
in the carriage. I am cold and tired, and she will be anxious for me."

"Will you at least give me one word of encouragement, Mademoiselle?" he
urged. "As you say, our points of view are very different. But I am on
the high road to fortune. The Emperor is back in France, the army flocks
to his eagles as one man. He trusts me and I shall rise to greatness
under his wing. Mademoiselle Crystal, you promised me your hand, I have
not released you from that promise yet. I will come and claim it soon."

"Excitement seems to have turned your brain, M. de Marmont," was all
that Crystal said, and she walked straight past him to the carriage
door.

Victor smothered a curse. These aristos were as arrogant as ever. What
lesson had the revolution and the guillotine taught them? None. This
girl who had spent her whole life in poverty and exile, and was
like--after a brief interregnum--to return to exile and poverty again,
was not a whit less proud than her kindred had been when they walked in
their hundreds up the steps of the guillotine with a smile of lofty
disdain upon their lips.

Victor de Marmont was a son of the people--of those who had made the
revolution and had fought the whole of Europe in order to establish
their right to govern themselves as they thought best, and he hated all
these aristos--the men who had fled from their country and abandoned it
when she needed her sons' help more than she had ever done before.

The aristocrat was for him synonymous with the emigre--with the man who
had raised a foreign army to fight against France, who had brought the
foreigner marching triumphantly into Paris. He hated the aristocrat, but
he loved Crystal, the one desirable product of that old regime system
which he abhorred.

But with him a woman's love mean