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Firefly of France! Even I, a benighted foreigner, knew the things that
title stood for: heroism, in a land where every soldier was a hero;
praise and medals and glory; thirty conquered aeroplanes--a record over
which his ancestors, those old marshals and constables lying effigied on
their tombs of marble with their feet resting on carved lions, must nod
their heads with pride.

"Mr. Bayne!"

It was Miss Falconer's voice. I rose reluctantly and obeyed the summons.
The Firefly was sitting propped on the chest, white, but steadier, while
Esme still knelt beside him, holding his hand in hers.

"I have been telling Jean, Mr. Bayne, how you have helped us." The
radiance of her face, the lilt of her voice, stabbed me with a jealous
pang. I wanted to see her happy, Heaven knew, but not quite in this
manner. "And he wants to thank you for all that you have done."

The Duke of Raincy-la-Tour spoke to me in English that was correct, but
quaintly formal, of a decided charm.

"Monsieur," he said, "I offer you my gratitude. And if you will
touch the hand of one concerning whom, I fear, very evil things are
believed--"

I forced a smile and a hearty pressure.

"I'll risk it," I assured him. "The chain of evidence against you seemed
far-fetched to say the least. They pointed out accusingly that your
father and your grandfather had been royalists, and that therefore--"

He made a gesture.

"May their souls find repose! Monsieur, it is true that they were.
But if they lived to-day, my father and grandfather, they would not be
traitors. They would wear, like me, the uniform of France."

He smiled, and I knew once for all that I could never hate him; that
mere envy and a shame of it were the worst that I could feel. Everything
about him won me, his simplicity, his fine pride, his clearness of eye
and voice, his look of a swift, polished sword blade. I had never seen
a man like him. The Duchess of Raincy-la-Tour would be a lucky woman; so
much was plain.

I found a seat on the window ledge, the girl remained kneeling by him,
and he told us his story, always in that quaint, formal speech. As
it went on it absorbed me. I even forgot those clasped hands for an
occasional instant. In every detail, in every quiet sentence, there
was some note that brought before me the Firefly's achievements, the
marauding airships he had climbed into the air to meet, the foes he had
swooped from the blue to conquer, his darts into the land of hi