regarded him with much surprise, with some slight sense of
annoyance; she had bent far in tendering her influence at the French
court to a private soldier, and his rejection of it seemed as ungracious
as it was inexplicable.

At that moment the Moor joined them.

"Milady has told me, M. Victor, that you are a first-rate carver of
ivories. How is it that you have never let me benefit by your art?"

"My things are not worth a sou," muttered Cecil hurriedly.

"You do them great injustice, and yourself also," said the grande dame,
more coldly than she had before spoken. "Your carvings are singularly
perfect, and should bring you considerable returns."

"Why have you never shown them to me at least?" pursued Ben Arsli--"why
not have given me my option?"

The blood flushed Cecil's face again; he turned to the Princess.

"I withheld them, madame, not because he would have underpriced, but
overpriced them. He rates a trifling act of mine, of long ago, so
unduly."

She bent her head in silence; yet a more graceful comprehension of his
motive she could not have given than her glance alone gave.

Ben Arsli stroked his great beard; more moved than his Moslem dignity
would show.

"Always so!" he muttered, "always so! My son, in some life before this,
was not generosity your ruin?"

"Milady was about to purchase the lamp?" asked Cecil, avoiding the
question. "Her Highness will not find anything like it in all Algiers."

The lamp was taken down, and the conversation turned from himself.

"May I bear it to your carriage, madame?" he asked, as she moved to
leave, having made it her own, while her footman carried out the smaller
articles she had bought to the equipage. She bowed in silence; she was
very exclusive, she was not wholly satisfied with herself for having
conversed thus with a Chasseur d'Afrique in a Moor's bazaar. Still, she
vaguely felt pity for this man; she equally vaguely desired to serve
him.

"Wait, M. Victor!" she said, as he closed the door of her carriage. "I
accepted your chessmen last night, but you are very certain that it is
impossible I can retain them on such terms."

A shadow darkened his face.

"Let your dogs break them then, madame. They shall not come back to me."

"You mistake--I did not mean that I would send them back. I simply
desire to offer you some equivalent for them. There must be something
that you wish for?--something which would be acceptable to you in the
life you lead?"