Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-10
lins and laundering drums, echoed through the rooms and shook him from

fflS feFef4e.e*s7T-s--- IT l Amid the shouts, the crash. the tll- mutt the gay, ringing gpiceof Cigarette rose distinct. s9Shes had apparently paused in her dancing to exchange one of those passes of arms which were her. specialty.S J OG
 "You call him misanthrope, and you have been drinking at his expense, you rascalm she cried disdainfully.
 The grumbled assent of the accused | was inaudible.
 "Ingrate!' pursued the scornfuI, tri- umphant voice of Cigarette. You would pawn your mothers grave clothes! You would eat your children in fricassee! You would sell your fathers bones for a draft of brandy" l The screams of mirth redoubled. Cigarettes style of whitening eloquence was suited to all her. auditors tastes, anu unuer Tne 7cnorus vi .e. ,.s. .-s ,-1 = 1 | cost her infuriated adversary plucked up courage and roared forth a defiance. 1 "White hands and brunettes face are fine things for soldier. He kills women-he kills women with his lady's S gracev'
 'sHe does not pull their ears to make them give him their money and beat them with 8 stick if they don't fry his eggs fast enough, as you do, Barbe- Grise," retorted the contemptuous tones of the champion of the absent. White hands, morbleu! Well, his hands are not always in other peoples pockets, as yours are!'
 I The screams of mirth redoubled. Il Barbe- Grise was 9 redoubtable author ity, whom the widest daredevil in his brigade dare not contradict, and he l was getting the worst of it under the lash of Cigarettes tongue, to the in- l finite glee of the whole ballroom.
 If you were but mani" thundered the insulted Barbe-G Grise.
 I What would you do to me, brig and" screamed Cigarette in fits of laughter give me 50 blows of . stick, as your officer gave you last week for stealing his gun from the recruit P l A growl like a lion from the badger l ed Barbe-Grise shook the walls. She had cast her nlischievous stroke at him on a very sore point, the unhappy young conseript's rife having been first dex.arously theeved from him and then as dexterously sold to an Arab.A
 s.Sacre bleur' he roared. You are in love with this conqueror of woman this aristocratH'
 & The only answer to this unbearable insult was a louder tumult of laugh ter, crash, a splash and volley of oaths from Barbe-Grise.
 Cigarette had launched a bottle of wine at him, blinded his eyes and X drencIled his@ beard with the red tor l rent and the shoNer of glass shivers and was back again, dancing like a l little Bacchante and singing at the top l of her sweet, larkIike voice.
 At the sound of the animated alter cation, not knowing but what one of his own troopers might be the delin- I quent, he wlio leaned out of the little easement moved forward te the door way of the dancing room. He did not l guess that it was himself whom she I had defended against the onslaught of I the Zephyr. Barbe-G -Grise.
 His height rose far above the French \ soldiers and above most even of the ltEaQfty statured spahis, and her rapid 1 lSiance flashed over aiEa at once. Did l. he hear?" she wondered. The scarlet flush of exercise and excitement deep-l ened on her clear brown cheek that had never. .blushed at the coarsest jests or the broadest love words of the barrack life that had been about her ever since her eyes first openedin their infancy to laugh at the sun gleam on cuiras- sier's corselet among the baggage Wag- ons that her mother followed. She thought he had not heard. His face was grave, a little weary, and his gaze as it fell on her was abstracted. | "Oh-he, handsome soldier!' thought | Cigarette, with flash of hot wrath SUI perseding her momentary and most rare embarrassment "Yeu are look ing at me and not thinking of me. We | will soon change thaee."
 | Such an insult she had never been | subjected to from the first day when she had danced for sweetmeats on the 1 top of great drum when she was 3 I years old in the middle of circular l camp of tirailleurs It sent fresh nerve l into her 1.-the limbs, it made her eyes flash like so much fire, it gave her a lnillionfold more grace, more abandon, more heedlessness. She stamped her l tiny, spurred foot petulantly. | lt SuG CilGO, dlu dS the musician obeyed her she whirled, she spun, she bounded, she seemed to l live in air, while her soft curls flew off her brow, and her white teeth glanced, and her cheeks glowed with a carmine I glow, and the little gold aglets broke across her chest with the beating of her heart, that throbbed like a birds heart when it is wild with the first breath of l spring.
 She had pitted herself against him, l and she won-So far.
 The viyacity, the impetuosity, the an 1 telope elegance, the voluptuous repose l that now and then broke the ceaseless, l sparkling movement of her dancing, caught his eyes and fixed them on her. It was bewitching, and it bewitched him for the moment He watched her as in other days he had watched the ballet charms of opera dancers.
 Suddenly she lifted both her hands above her head.
 With me, soldiers."
 It was the signal we'll known, the signal of permission to join in that 1 wild vertigo for which every one of her