les are nothing to me. I am a child of the People. So you are
a Duke, are you, M. le Seraph? Well, that is not much, to my thinking.
Bah! there is Fialin made a Duke in Paris, and there are aristocrats
here wearing privates' uniforms, and littering down their own horses.
Bah! Have you that sort of thing in Albion?"

"Attorneys throned on high, and gentlemen glad to sweep crossings? Oh,
yes!" laughed her interlocutor. "But you speak of aristocrats in your
ranks--that reminds me. Have you not in this corps a soldier called
Louis Victor?"

He had turned as he spoke to one of the officers, who answered him in
the affirmative; while Cigarette listened with all her curiosity and all
her interest, that needed a deeper name, heightened and tight-strung.

"A fine fellow," continued the Chef d'Escadron to whom he had appealed.
"He behaved magnificently the other day at Zaraila; he must be
distinguished for it. He is just sent on a perilous errand, but though
so quiet he is a croc-mitaine, and woe to the Arabs who slay him! Are
you acquainted with him?"

"Not in the least. But I wished to hear all I could of him. I have been
told he seems above his present position. Is it so?"

"Likely enough, monsieur; he seems a gentleman. But then we have
many gentlemen in the ranks, and we can make no difference for that.
Cigarette can tell you more of him; she used to complain that he bowed
like a Court chamberlain."

"Oh, ha!--I did!" cried Cigarette, stung into instant irony because
pained and irritated by being appealed to on the subject. "And of
course, when so many of his officers have the manners of Pyrenean bears,
it is a little awkward for him to bring us the manner of a Palace!"

Which effectually chastised the Chef d'Escadron, who was one of those
who had a ton of the roughest manners, and piqued himself on his powers
of fence much more than on his habits of delicacy.

"Has this Victor any history?" asked the English Duke.

"He has written one with his sword; a fine one," said Cigarette curtly.
"We are not given here to care much about any other."

"Quite right; I asked because a friend of mine who had seen his carvings
wished to serve him, if it were possible; and--"

"Ho! That is Milady, is suppose!" Cigarette's eyes flashed fire
instantly, in wrath and suspicion. "What did she tell you about him?"

"I am ignorant of whom you speak?" he answered, with something of
surprise and annoyance.

"Are you?" said Cigarette,