Chasseur flushed like a boy. "Why _will_ you harp on what a
grandfather made me?" he blurted out. "And what's a duke----?"

"And a prince?--the Prince of Moskowa!" She courtesied from her slender
waist.

"Alas for my blunders," she sighed, "for it _was_ more delicate
after all to call you sergeant. In that I congratulate you yourself,
Michel, and never a grandfather."

Ney frowned unhappily. "The first prince of Moskowa was once a
sergeant," he murmured, "and why shouldn't I, in this new country----"

"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," she sang, and smiled on him.

His eyes flashed, and because of the voice his heart quickened. He had
heard of "this new country." It was "a gold mine in a bed of roses," but
with a thorn, to say nothing of a bayonet, for every bud, and like many
another young Frenchman he hoped to win renown in the romantic Mexican
Empire, sprung like Minerva from the brain of his own emperor. And now
here was a girl humming the war song of his fathers and of his race, and
flaunting his warrior's ambition in it.

"My Sergeant has gone to the wars,
Far off to war in Flanders.
He's a bold prince of commanders,
With a fame like Alexander's--
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!

"Mon Sergot s'en va t-en guerre--
Ne sais quand reviendra.
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!"

Having thus ousted the crusading hero of the song, and put the slang for
"sergeant" in his stead, Jacqueline leaned back on the gunwale quite
contented. She fell to gazing on the transparent emerald of the inshore,
and plunged in her hand. The soft, plump wrist turned baby pink under
the riffles. Of a sudden Berthe her maid half screamed, whereat with a
delighted little gasp of fright, she jerked out the hand. But she put it
back again, to tempt the watchful shark out there.

"_My_ grandfather was only a duke," she mused aloud, very humbly.
But she peeped up at Ney in the most exasperating manner. He could just
see the gray eyes behind the edge of lace that fell from the slanting
brim of her hat. He would not, though, meet the challenge. He kept to
sincerity as the safer ground.

"Like mine, mademoiselle, yours made himself one, under Napoleon."

"The _great_ Napoleon," she corrected him gently.

Michel assented with a sad little nod. Then he raised his head bravely.
"And why not do things _without_ a _great_ Napoleon, and,
after all, isn't he _a_ Napoleon, and one who----"

"Is lucky enough to bea