Bah! Have you that sort of thing in Albion?"
"Attorneys throned on high, and gentlemen glad to sweep crossings? Oh,
yes!" laughed her interlocutor. "But you speak of aristocrats in your
ranks--that reminds me. Have you not in this corps a soldier called
Louis Victor?"
He had turned as he spoke to one of the officers, who answered him in
the affirmative; while Cigarette listened with all her curiosity and all
her interest, that needed a deeper name, heightened and tight-strung.
"A fine fellow," continued the Chef d'Escadron to whom he had appealed.
"He behaved magnificently the other day at Zaraila; he must be
distinguished for it. He is just sent on a perilous errand, but though
so quiet he is a croc-mitaine, and woe to the Arabs who slay him! Are
you acquainted with him?"
"Not in the least. But I wished to hear all I could of him. I have been
told he seems above his present position. Is it so?"
"Likely enough, monsieur; he seems a gentleman. But then we have
many gentlemen in the ranks, and we can make no difference for that.
Cigarette can tell you more of him; she used to complain that he bowed
like a Court chamberlain."
"Oh, ha!--I did!" cried Cigarette, stung into instant irony because
pained and irritated by being appealed to on the subject. "And of
course, when so many of his officers have the manners of Pyrenean bears,
it is a little awkward for him to bring us the manner of a Palace!"
Which effectually chastised the Chef d'Escadron, who was one of those
who had a ton of the roughest manners, and piqued himself on his powers
of fence much more than on his habits of delicacy.
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