h! you beg the question. Did not a woman send you out here?"

"No, monsieur--only chance."

"A fig for your chance! Women are the mischief that casts us adrift to
chance."

"Monsieur, we cast ourselves sometimes."

"Dieu de Dieu! I doubt that. We should go straight enough if it were not
for them."

The Chasseur smiled again.

"M. le Viscomte thinks we are sure to be right, then, if, for the key to
every black story, we ask, 'Who was she?'"

"Of course I do. Well! who was she? We are all quoting our tempters
to-night. Give us your story, mon brave!"

"Monsieur, you have it in the folios, as well as my sword could write
it."

"Good, good!" muttered the listening General. The soldier-like answer
pleased him, and he looked attentively at the giver of it.

Chanrellon's brown eyes flashed a bright response.

"And your sword writes in a brave man's fashion--writes what France
loves to read. But before you wore your sword here? Tell us of that. It
was a romance--wasn't it?"

"If it were, I have folded down the page, monsieur."

"Open it then! Come--what brought you out among us? Out with it!"

"Monsieur, direct obedience is a soldier's duty; but I never heard that
inquisitive annoyance was an officer's privilege."

These words were calm, cold, a little languid, and a little haughty.
The manner of old habit, the instinct of buried pride spoke in them,
and disregarded the barrier between a private of Chasseurs who was but a
sous-officier, and a Colonel Commandant who was also a noble of France.

Involuntarily, all the men sitting round the little table, outside the
cafe, turned and looked at him. The boldness of speech and the quietude
of tone drew all their eyes in curiosity upon him.

Chanrellon flushed scarlet over his frank brow, and an instant's passion
gleamed out of his eyes; the next he threw his three chairs down with a
crash, as he shook his mighty frame like an Alpine dog, and bowed with a
French grace, with a campaigner's frankness.

"A right rebuke!--fairly given, and well deserved. I thank you for the
lesson."

The Chasseur looked surprised and moved; in truth, he was more touched
than he showed. Under the rule of Chateauroy, consideration and courtesy
had been things long unshown to him. Involuntarily, forgetful of rank,
he stretched his hand out, on the impulse of soldier to soldier,
of gentleman to gentleman. Then, as the bitter remembrance of the
difference in rank and station between the