Cecil laughed slightly; but he answered, with a certain annoyance:
"There is no 'insolence' here; no question of it. Mme. la Princesse
desired to offer some gift to the soldiers of Algiers; I suggested to
her that to increase the scant comforts of the hospital, and gladden the
weary eyes of sick men with beauties that the Executive never dreams of
bestowing, would be the most merciful and acceptable mode of exercising
her kindness. If blame there be in the matter, it is mine."
In defending the generosity of what he knew to be a genuine and sincere
wish to gratify his comrades, he betrayed what he did not intend to have
revealed, namely, the conversation that had passed between himself
and the Spanish Princesse. Cigarette caught at the inference with the
quickness of her lightning-like thought.
"Oh, ha! So it is she!"
There was a whole world of emphasis, scorn, meaning, wrath,
comprehension, and irony in the four monosyllables; the dying man looked
at her with languid wonder.
"She? Who? What story goes with these roses?"
"None," said Cecil, with the same inflection of annoyance in his voice;
to have his passing encounter with this beautiful patrician pass into a
barrack canard, through the unsparing jests of the soldiery around
him, was a prospect very unwelcome to him. "None whatever. A generous
thoughtfulness for our common necessities as soldiers--"
"Ouf!" interrupted Cigarette, before his phrase was one-third finished.
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