head
leaning on his hand, looked vaguely at the chess-board, and saw,
mirrored on every onyx square, the eyes of his wife.

"Will you have the journals, dear?" she asked presently. She
handed him the _Gaulois_, and he thanked her and opened it,
peering closely at the black print.

After a moment he read: "M. Ollivier declared, in the Corps
Legislatif, that 'at no time in the history of France has the
maintenance of peace been more assured than to-day.' Oh, that
journal is two weeks' old, Helen.

"The treaty of Paris in 1856 assured peace in the Orient, and the
treaty of Prague in 1866 assures peace in Germany," continued the
vicomte; "I don't see why it should be necessary for Monsieur
Ollivier to insist."

He dropped the paper on the stones and touched his white
mustache.

"You are thinking of General Chanzy," said his wife,
laughing--"you always twist your mustache like that when you're
thinking of Chanzy."

He smiled, for he was thinking of Chanzy, his sword-brother; and
the hot plains of Oran and the dusty columns of cavalry passed
before his eyes--moving, moving across a world of desert into the
flaming disk of the setting sun.

"Is to-day the 16th of July, Helen?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then Chanzy is coming back from Oran. I know you dread it. We
shall talk of nothing but Abd-el-Kader and Spahis and Turcos, and
how we lost our Kabyle tobacco at Bou-Youb."

She had heard all about it, too; she knew every etape of the 48th
of the Line--from the camp at Sathonay to Sidi-Bel-Abbes, and
from Daya to Djebel-Mikaidon. Not that she cared for sabres and
red trousers, but nothing that concerned her husband was
indifferent to her.

"I hope General Chanzy will come," she said, "and tell you all
about those poor Kabyles and the Legion and that horrid 2d
Zouaves that you and he laugh over. Are you tired, dear?"

"No. Shall we play? I believe it was my move. How warm it is in
the sun--no, don't stir, dear--I like it, and my gout is better
for it. What do you suppose all those young people are doing?
Hear Betty Castlemaine laugh! It is very fortunate for them,
Helen, that I married an American with an American's disregard of
French conventionalities."

"I am very strict," said his wife, smiling; "I can survey them en
chaperone."

"If you turn around. But you don't."

"I do when it is necessary," said Madame de Morteyn, indignantly;
"Molly Hesketh is there."

The vicomte laughed and picked up the knight again.