Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-15

0 Sleur le COmmandant de-
 Sa sires you to present your SSSy self at his quarters to- night ct 10 precisely with all your cary- ings. above all with the chessmen."
 The swift. sharp voice of a young officer of his regiment wakened Cecil from his musing as he went on his way down the crowded, tortuous, sti- i fling street. He had scarcely time to catch the sense of the words and to halt, giving the salute, before the chas- seur's skittish little Barbary mare had galIoped past him. Cecil involuntarily stood still His face darkened. All orders that touched on the service, even where harshest and most unwel- come, he had taught himself to take 1 without any hesitation till he now scarcely felt the check of the steel curb, but to be ordered thus like a Iackey-to take his wares thus like a hawker!
 "Ah! We are soldiers, not traders, aren't we? You don't like that, M l Victor? You are no peddler, eh? And you think you would rather risk being court martiaIed and shot than take your ivory toys for the Black Hawks talonS?
 Cecil glanced up in astonishment at 1 the divination and translation of his l thoughts to encounter the bright fal- con eyes of Cigarette looking down on him from little oval easement above.
 "Good day, pretty one," he answer ed with a little weariness, lifting his l fez to her with a certain sense of an- noyance that this young Bohemian of the barracks, this child with her slang and her satire, should always be in his way like a shadow.
 Good day, my brave one!" returned Cigarette contemptuously. ''We are not so ceremonious as all that in AL giersl Good fellow, you should be a chamberlain, not a corporal. What fine mannersr'
 She was incensed and piqued and provoked. She had been ready to for give him because he carved so won derfully and sold the carvings for his .comrade at the hospital. She was holding out the olive branch after her own petulant fashion, and she thought if he had had any grace in him he would have responded with some such dorid compliment as those for which she was accustomed to box the ears of her admirers, and would have swung himself up to the coping to touch, or at least try to touch, those sweet, fresh, crimson lips of hers that; were like half opened damask rose.
 s.Fine mannersv' echoed Cecil, with smile My poor child, have you been so buffeted about that you have never been treated with common courtesy"
 "Wheww cried the little lady, blow ing puff of smoke down on him. '.None of your pity for me! Buffeted about? Do you suppose anybody ever did anything with me that I didn't choose? If you had as much power as have in the army, Chateauroy would not send for you to sell your toys like peddler. You are slavei l am a soyereignw
 He listened, amused with her boast full supremacy, but the last words tonched him with certain pang just in that moment.
 Well, yes,'' he said slowly, CT am slave, fear. I wish Bedouin f1issa would cut my thralls in two'
 He spoke jestingly, but there was tinge of sadness in the words that touched Cigarettes changeful temper to contrition. She knew she had been ungenerous, a crime dark as night in the sight of the little chivalrous sol dier.
 Never mind," she said softly and waywardly, winding her way alright with that penetration and tact which, however unsexed in other things, Ciga- rette had kept thoroughly feminine That was but an idle word of mine Forgive it and forget it. You are not slave when you fight. They say to see you kill a man is beautiful-so work manlike! And you would go out and be shot tomorrow rather than sell your honor or stain it, eh? Take a glass of champagne? Prut-tut, how you look! Oh, the bottles with the silver necks are not barrack drink, of course, but I drink champagne always myself. This is the princes. He knows only take the best brands"
 With which Cigarette, leaning down from her easement, whose sill was about q foot above his head, tendered her peace offering in a bottle of Cliquot, three of which, packed in her knap- sack, she had carried off from the luncheon table of Russian prince who was touring through Algiers and who had half lost his grand ducal head after the bewitching, dauntless, caprieious, unattachable, unpurchasable and CO., quettish little fire eater of the spahis, who treated him with infinitely more insolence and indifference than she would show to some battered old veter- an or some wornout old dog who had passed through the great Kabaila ra.ds and battles
 .'You will go to your colonel's to- nightY she said questioningly as he drank the champagne and thanked her, for he saw the spirit in which the gift was rendered. He shrugged his shoul- ders. He did not care to discuss his colonePs orders with this pretty little Bacchante
 "Oh, chiefs command, you know''-
 "A fig for a chiefv' retorted Ciga- rette impatiently. ''Why don't you say the truth? You are thinking you will disobey and risk the rest!'
 tsWeIl why notp crraDt his rioht