le fete-day to wait on the anguish and to soothe the solitude of his
friend lying dying there; and her reward had been to hear him speak of
this aristocrat's donations, that cost her nothing but the trouble of a
few words of command to her household, as though they were the saintly
charities of some angel from heaven!

"Diantre!" she muttered, as her hand wandered to the ever-beloved forms
of the pistols within her sash. "Any of them would throw a draught of
wine in his face, and lay him dead for me with a pass or two ten minutes
after. Why don't I bid them? I have a mind----"

In that moment she could have shot him dead herself without a moment's
thought. Storm and sunlight swept, one after another, with electrical
rapidity at all times, through her vivid, changeful temper; and here
she had been wounded and been stung in the very hour in which she had
subdued her national love of mirth, and her childlike passion for show,
and her impatience of all confinement, and her hatred of all things
mournful, in the attainment of this self-negation! Moreover, there
mingled with it the fierce and intolerant heat of the passionate and
scarce-conscious jealousy of an utterly untamed nature, and of Gallic
blood, quick and hot as the steaming springs of the Geyser.

"You have vexed her, Victor," said Leon Ramon, as she was lost to sight
through the doors of the great, desolate chamber.

"I hope not; I do not know how," answered Cecil. "It is impossible
to follow the windings of her wayward caprices. A child--a soldier--a
dancer--a brigand--a spoiled beauty--a mischievous gamin--how is one to
treat such a little fagot of opposites?"

The others smiled.

"Ah! you do not know the Little One yet. She is worth a study. I painted
her years ago--'La Vivandiere a Sept Ans.' There was not a picture in
the Salon that winter that was sought like it. I had traveled in Algeria
then; I had not entered the army. The first thing I saw of Cigarette was
this: She was seven years old; she had been beaten black and blue; she
had had two of her tiny teeth knocked out. The men were furious--she was
a pet with them; and she would not say who had done it, though she knew
twenty swords would have beaten him flat as a fritter if she had given
his name. I got her to sit to me some days after. I pleased her with
her own picture. I asked her to tell me why she would not say who had
ill-treated her. She put her head on one side like a robin, and told me,
in