o had helped her in her flight, had
very much the same charm of breeding, very much the same intonation of
voice; instinctively she knew him to be of the same social caste; but
they, and the officers whom she saw about the street and in the
courtyard, when duty called them there, had the military air of
command. And this her little English soldier had not. Of course, he
was only a private, and privates are trained to obedience. She knew
that perfectly well. But why was he not commanding instead of obeying?
There was a reason for it. She had seen it in his eyes. She wished she
had made him talk more about himself. Perhaps she had been
unsympathetic and selfish. He assumed, she reflected, a certain
_cranerie_ with his fellows--and _cranerie_ is "swagger" bereft of
vulgarity--we have no word to connote its conception in a French
mind--and she admired it; but her swift intuition pierced the
assumption. She divined a world of hesitancies behind the Musketeer
swing of the shoulders. He was so gentle, so sensitive, so quick to
understand. And yet so proud. And yet again so unconfessedly
dependent. Her woman's protective instinct responded to a mute appeal.

"But, Ma'amselle Jeanne, you are wet through, you are perished with
cold. What folly have you been committing?" Toinette scolded, when she
returned after wishing Doggie the last "_bonne chance_."

"The folly of putting my Frenchwoman's heart (_mon coeur de
Francaise_) into the hands of a brave little soldier to fight with
him in the trenches."

"_Mon Dieu, ma'amselle_, you had better go straight to bed, and I will
bring you a _bon tilleul_, which will calm your nerves and produce a
good perspiration."

So Toinette put Jeanne to bed and administered the infallible infusion
of lime leaves, and Jeanne was never the worse for her adventure. But
the next day she wondered a little why she had undertaken it. She had
a vague idea that it paid a little debt of sympathy.

An evening or two afterwards Jeanne was sewing in the kitchen when
Toinette, sitting in the arm-chair by the extinct fire, fished out of
her pocket the little olive-wood box with the pansies and
forget-me-nots on the lid, and took a long pinch of snuff. She did it
with somewhat of an air which caused Jeanne to smile.

"_Dites donc_, Toinette, you are insupportable with your snuff-box.
One would say a marquise of the old school."

"Ah, Ma'amselle Jeanne," said the old woman, "you must not laugh at
me. I was