"He made me bow this morning like a
chamberlain; and his beard is like carded silk, and he has such woman's
hands, mon Dieu! But he is a croc-mitaine, too."

"Rather!" laughed Claude de Chanrellon, as magnificent a soldier himself
as ever crossed swords. "I said he would eat fire the very minute he
played that queer game of dice with me years ago. I wish I had him
instead of you, Chateauroy; like lightning in a charge; and yet the very
man for a dangerous bit of secret service that wants the softness of a
panther. We all let our tongues go too much, but he says so little--just
a word here, a word there--when one's wanted--no more; and he's the
devil's own to fight."

The Marquis heard the praise of his Corporal, knitting his heavy brows;
it was evident the private was no favorite with him.

"The fellow rides well enough," he said, with an affectation of
carelessness; "there--for what I see--is the end of his marvels. I wish
you had him, Claude, with all my soul."

"Oh, ha!" cried Chanrellon, wiping the Rhenish off his tawny mustaches,
"he should have been a captain by this if I had. Morbleu! He is a
splendid sabreur--kills as many men to his own sword as I could myself,
when it comes to a hand-to-hand fight; breaks horses in like magic;
rides them like the wind; has a hawk's eye over open country; obeys like
clockwork; what more can you want?"

"Obeys! Yes!" said the Colonel of Chasseurs, with a snarl. "He'd obey
without a word if you ordered him to walk up to a cannon's mouth, and
be blown from it; but he gives you such a d----d languid grand seigneur
glance as he listens that one would think he commanded the regiment."

"But he's very popular with your men, too?"

"Monsieur, the worst quality a corporal can have. His idea of
maintaining discipline is to treat them to cognac and give them
tobacco."

"Pardieu! Not a bad way, either, with our French fire-eaters. He knows
them that he has to deal with; that brave fellow. Your squadrons would
go to the devil after him."

The Colonel gave a grim laugh.

"I dare say nobody knows the way better."

Cigarette, flirting with the other officers, drinking champagne by great
glassfuls, eating bonbons from one, sipping another's soup, pulling
the limbs of a succulent ortolan to pieces with a relish, and devouring
truffles with all the zest of a bon-vivant, did not lose a word, and
catching the inflection of Chateauroy's voice, settled with her own
thoughts that "Bel-a