l."

"You belonged in the majority, then!" said Cigarette, with a piquance
made a thousand times more piquant by the camp slang she spoke in.
"You should not have had to come into the ranks, mon ami;
majorities--specially that majority--have very smooth sailing
generally!"

He looked at her more closely, though she wearied him.

"Where have you got your ironies, Cigarette? You are so young."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Bah! one is never young, and always young in camps. Young? Pardieu!
When I was four I could swear like a grenadier, plunder like a prefet,
lie like a priest, and drink like a bohemian."

Yet--with all that--and it was the truth, the brow was so open under the
close rings of the curls, the skin so clear under the sun-tan, the mouth
so rich and so arch in its youth!

"Why did you come into the service?" she went on, before he had a chance
to answer her. "You were born in the Noblesse--bah! I know an aristocrat
at a glance! Now many of those aristocrats come; shoals of them; but it
is always for something. They all come for something; most of them
have been ruined by the lionnes, a hundred million of francs gone in
a quarter! Ah, bah! what blind bats the best of you are! They have
gambled, or bet, or got into hot water, or fought too many duels or
caused a court scandal, or something; all the aristocrats that come to
Africa are ruined. What ruined you, M. l'Aristocrat?"

"Aristocrat? I am none. I am a Corporal of the Chasseurs."

"Diable! I have known a Duke a Corporal! What ruined you?"

"What ruins most men, I imagine--folly."

"Folly, sure enough!" retorted Cigarette, with scornful acquiescence.
She had no patience with him. He danced so deliciously, he looked so
superb, and he would give her nothing but these absent answers. "Wisdom
don't bring men who look as you look into the ranks of the volunteers
for Africa. Besides, you are too handsome to be a sage!"

He laughed a little.

"I never was one, that's certain. And you are too pretty to be a cynic."

"A what?" She did not know the word. "Is that a good cigar you have?
Give me one. Do women smoke in your old country?"

"Oh, yes--many of them."

"Where is it, then?"

"I have no country--now."

"But the one you had?"

"I have forgotten I ever had one."

"Did it treat you ill, then?"

"Not at all."

"Had you anything you cared for in it?"

"Well--yes."

"What was it? A woman?"

"No--a horse."

He stooped his head a li