le
Marechal's at a review, as I have done this morning."
The keen ear of the sick man caught the inflection of an impatience, of
a mortification, in the tone that the speaker himself was unconscious
of. He guessed the truth--that Cecil had never felt more restless under
the shadow of the Eagles than he had done when he had carried his sword
up in the salute as he passed with his regiment the flagstaff where
the aristocracy of Algiers had been gathered about the Marshal and his
staff, and the azure eyes of Mme. la Princesse had glanced carelessly
and critically over the long line of gray horses of those Chasseurs
d'Afrique among whom he rode a bas-officier.
"Cigarette is right," said Ramon, with a slight smile. "Your heart is
with your old order. You are an aristocrat."
"Indeed I am not, mon ami; I am a mere trooper."
"Now! Well, keep your history as you have always done, if you will. What
my friend was matters nothing; I know well what he is, and how true a
friend. As for Milady, she will be best out of your path, Victor. Women!
God!--they are so fatal!"
"Does not our folly make their fatality?"
"Not always; not often. The madness may be ours, but they sow it. Ah! do
they not know how to rouse and enrage it; how to fan, to burn, to lull,
to pierce, to slake, to inflame, to entice, to sting? Heavens! so well
they know--that their beauty must come, one thinks, out of hell itself!"
His great eyes gleamed like fire, his hollow chest panted for breath,
the sweat stood out on his temples.
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