titude the soldier's own reserve, or taciturnity, had not tended to
dispel. So, his being in the property wagon seemed no more singular
than Hans' occupancy of the front seat, or if Adonis, Hawkes, or Susan
had been there with her. She was accustomed to free and easy
comradeship; indeed, knew no other life, and it was only assiduous
attentions, like those of the land baron's, that startled and
disquieted her.

As comfortably as might be, she settled back in the capacious,
threadbare throne, a slender figure in its depths--more adapted to
accommodate a corpulent Henry VIII!--and smiled gaily, as the wagon,
in avoiding one rut, ran into another and lurched somewhat violently.
Saint-Prosper, lodged on a neighboring trunk, quickly extended a
steadying hand.

"You see how precarious thrones are!" he said.

"There isn't room for it to more than totter," she replied lightly,
removing her bonnet and lazily swinging it from the arm of the chair.

"Then it's safer than real thrones," he answered, watching the swaying
bonnet, or perhaps, contrasting the muscular, bronzed hand he had
placed on the chair with the smooth, white one which held the blue
ribbons; a small, though firm, hand to grapple with the minotaur,
Life!

She slowly wound the ribbons around her fingers.

"Oh, you mean France," she said, and he looked away with sudden
disquietude. "Poor monarchs! Their road is rougher than this one."

"Rougher truly!"

"You love France?" she asked suddenly, after studying, with secret,
sidelong glances his reserved, impenetrable face.

His gaze returned to her--to the bonnet now resting in her lap--to the
hand beside it.

"It is my native land," he replied.

"Then why did you leave it--in its trouble?" she asked impulsively.

"Why?" he repeated, regarding her keenly; but in a moment he added:
"For several reasons. I returned from Africa, from serving under
Bugeaud, to find the red flag waving in Paris; the king fled!"

"Oh," she said, quickly, "a king should--"

"What?" he asked, as she paused.

"I was going to say it was better to die like a king than--"

"Than live an outcast!" he concluded for her, a shadow on his brow.

She nodded. "At any rate, that is the way they always do in the
plays," she added brightly. "But you were saying you found your real
king fled?"

His heavy brows contracted, though he answered readily enough: "Yes,
the king had fled. A kinsman in whose house I had been reared then
bade me h