like a caress, "do you know that, among all those
who fought for our country, you are the one admiration of my life?"

He smiled, and mentioned more illustrious names.

"No, no," she answered; "those are not the names I care for, but yours. I
will tell you why."

And she recalled, in a voice vibrating with emotion, all that Prince
Zilah Sandor and his son had attempted, twenty years before, for the
liberty of Hungary. She told the whole story in the most vivid manner;
had her age permitted her to have been present at those battles, she
could not have related them with more spirited enthusiasm.

"I know, perfectly, how, at the head of your hussars, you wrested from
the soldiers of Jellachich the first standard captured by the Hungarians
from the ranks of Austria. Shall I tell you the exact date? and the day
of the week? It was Thursday."

The whole history, ignored, forgotten, lost in the smoke of more recent
wars, the strange, dark-eyed girl, knew day by day, hour by hour; and
there, in that Parisian dining-room, surrounded by all that crowd, where
yesterday's 'bon mot', the latest scandal, the new operetta, were
subjects of paramount importance, Andras, voluntarily isolated, saw
again, present and living, his whole heroic past rise up before him, as
beneath the wave of a fairy's wand.

"But how do you know me so well?" he asked, fixing his clear eyes upon
Marsa Laszlo's face. "Was your father one of my soldiers?"

"My father was a Russian," responded Marsa, abruptly, her voice suddenly
becoming harsh and cutting.

"A Russian?"

"Yes, a Russian," she repeated, emphasizing the word with a sort of dull
anger. "My mother alone was a Tzigana, and my mother's beauty was part of
the spoils of those who butchered your soldiers?"

In the uproar of conversation, which became more animated with the
dessert, she could not tell him of the sorrows of her life; and yet, he
guessed there was some sad story in the life of the young girl, and
almost implored her to speak, stopping just at the limit where sympathy
might change into indiscretion.

"I beg your pardon," he said, as she was silent, with a dark shadow
overspreading her face. "I have no right to know your life simply because
you are so well acquainted with mine."

"Oh! you!" she said, with a sad smile; "your life is history; mine is
drama, melodrama even. There is a great difference."

"Pardon my presumption!"

"Oh! I will willingly tell you of my life, if th