cely. "I go now to meet an enemy."

"If I should change that enemy into a friend--" she hinted.

"Then I should have no need of stratagem or force."

"Force?" she asked suggestively. The drollery of it set her smiling.

"In a week I shall have five hundred men."

"Dreamer!" she thought, and shook her head dubiously; but, glancing
again at the ivory portrait, her mood changed.

"Au revoir," she said. "Come and tell me about the mockers. Success go
with you--sire."

Yet she did not know whether she thought him sire or sinner, gentleman
or comedian, as she watched him go down the hill with Lagroin and
Parpon. But she had the portrait. How did he get it? No matter, it was
hers now.

Curious to know more of the episode in the village below, she ordered
her carriage, and came driving slowly past the Louis Quinze at an
exciting moment. A crowd had gathered, and boys, and even women, were
laughing and singing in ridicule snatches of, "Vive Napoleon!" For, in
derision of yesterday's event, a small boy, tricked out with a paper
cocked-hat and incongruous regimentals, with a hobby-horse between his
legs, was marching up and down, preceded by another lad, who played a
toy drum in derision of Lagroin. The children had been well rehearsed,
for even as Valmond arrived upon the scene, Lagroin and Parpon on either
side of him, the mock Valmond was bidding the drummer: "Play up the feet
of the army!"

The crowd parted on either side, silenced and awed by the look of
potential purpose in the face of this yesterday's hero. The old
sergeant's glance was full of fury, Parpon's of a devilish sort of glee.

Valmond approached the lads.

"My children," he said kindly, "you have not learned your lesson well
enough. You shall be taught." He took the paper caps from their heads.
"I will give you better caps than these." He took the hobby-horse, the
drum, and the tin swords. "I will give you better things than these."
He put the caps on the ground, added the toys to the heap, and Parpon,
stooping, lighted the paper. Scattering money among the crowd, and
giving some silver to the lads, Valmond stood looking at the bonfire for
a moment, and then, pointing to it dramatically, said:

"My friends, my brothers, Frenchmen, we will light larger fires than
these. Your young Seigneur sought to do me honour this afternoon. I
thank him, and he shall have proof of my affection in due time. And
now our good landlord's wine is free to you, for one g