k, and Chateauroy spoke for your fitness for the errand
they are going to send you on, very truthfully, for a wonder. I don't
know why; but he wants you to be sent, I think; most likely that you may
be cut to pieces. And so they will send for you in a minute. I have done
it as you wished."

There was something of her old brusquerie and recklessness in the
closing sentences; but it had not her customary debonair lightness. She
knew too well that the chances were as a hundred to one that he would
never return alive from this service on which he had entreated to be
dispatched. Cecil grasped both her hands in his with warm gratitude,
that was still, like the touch of his hands, the gratitude of comrade to
comrade, not of man to woman.

"God bless you, Cigarette! You are a true friend, my child. You have
done me immeasurable benefits--"

"Oh! I am a true friend," said the Little One, somewhat pettishly. She
would have preferred another epithet. "If a man wants to get shot as a
very great favor, I always let him pleasure himself. Give a man his
own way, if you wish to be kind to him. You are children, all of you,
nothing but children, and if the toy that pleases you best is death,
why--you must have it. Nothing else would content you. I know you. You
always want what flies from you, and are tired of what lies to your
hand. That is always a man."

"And a woman, too, is it not?"

Cigarette shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I dare say! We love what is new--what is strange. We are
humming-tops; we will only spin when we are fresh wound up with a string
to our liking."

"Make an exception of yourself, my child. You are always ready to do a
good action, and never tire of that. From my heart I thank you. I wish
to Heaven I could prove it better."

She drew her hands away from him.

"A great thing I have done, certainly! Got you permission to go and
throw a cartel at old King Death; that is all! There! That is your
summons."

The orderly approached, and brought the bidding of the general in
command of the Cavalry for Cecil to render himself at once to his
presence. These things brook no second's delay in obedience; he went
with a quick adieu to Cigarette, and the little Friend of the Flag was
left in his vacant place beside the fire.

And there was a pang at her heart.

"Ten to one he goes to his death," she thought. But Cigarette, little
mischief-maker though she was, could reach very high in one thing; she
could reach