t the dwellers in tents become
enamored of their lot, and, content with what the desert has to give,
desire no other. It is only the neophyte who rides after the mirage and
thirsts for the Dead Sea apple."

She smiled again.

"Ah!" she said, "the gifts of the desert are two-fold, and what one gets
depends on what one seeks. For some the wilderness has gifts of
resignation, meditation, peace; for others it has the horse, the tent,
the pipe, the gun, the chase of the panther and antelope. But to go back
to yourself. Life, you say, would be barren without ambition and love.
What is your ambition?"

"Nay, Madame, that is more than I can tell you--more than I know
myself."

"Your profession...."

"If ever I dream dreams, Madame," I interrupted quickly, "my profession
has no share in them. It is a profession I do not love, and which I hope
some day to abandon."

"Your dreams, then?"

I shook my head.

"Vague--unsubstantial--illusory--forgotten as soon as dreamt! How can I
analyze them? How can I describe them? In childhood one says--'I should
like to be a soldier, and conquer the world;' or 'I should like to be a
sailor, and discover new Continents;' or 'I should like to be a poet,
and wear a laurel wreath, like Petrarch and Dante;' but as one gets
older and wiser (conscious, perhaps, of certain latent energies, and
weary of certain present difficulties and restraints), one can only
wait, as best one may, and watch for the rising of that tide whose flood
leads on to fortune."

With this I rose to take my leave. Madame de Courcelles smiled and put
out her hand.

"Come often," she said; "and come at the hours when I am at home. I
shall always be glad to see you. Above all, remember my caution--not a
word to Captain Dalrymple, either now or at any other time."

"Madame, you may rely upon me. One thing I ask, however, as the reward
of my discretion."

"And that one thing?"

"Permission, Madame, to serve you in any capacity, however humble--in
any strait where a brother might interfere, or a faithful retainer lay
down his life in your service."

With a sweet earnestness that made my heart beat and my cheeks glow, she
thanked and promised me.

"I shall look upon you henceforth," she said, "as my knight _sans peur
et sans reproche_."

Heaven knows that not all the lessons of all the moralists that ever
wrote or preached since the world began, could just then have done me
half such good service as did those si