Under Two Flags Part 45

"Is that for sale?" she inquired.

As he answered in the affirmative, she moved up the shop, and, her eyes being lifted to the lamp, had drawn close to Cecil before she saw him.

When she did so, she paused near in astonishment.

"Is that soldier asleep?"

"He is, madame," softly answered the old man, in his slow, studied French. "He comes here to rest sometimes out of the noise; he was very tired to-day, and I think ill, would he have confessed it."

"Indeed!" Her eyes fell on him with compa.s.sion; he had fallen into an att.i.tude of much grace and of utter exhaustion; his head was uncovered and rested on one arm, so that the face was turned upward. With a woman's rapid, comprehensive glance, she saw that dark shadow, like a bruise, under his closed, aching eyes; she saw the weary pain upon his forehead; she saw the whiteness of his hands, the slenderness of his wrists, the softness of his hair; she saw, as she had seen before, that whatever he might be now, in some past time he had been a man of gentle blood, of courtly bearing.

"He is a Cha.s.seur d'Afrique?" she asked the Moslem.

"Yes, madame. I think--he must have been something very different some day."

She did not answer; she stood with her thoughtful eyes gazing on the worn-out soldier.

"He saved me once, madame, at much risk to himself, from the savagery of some Turcos," the old man went on. "Of course, he is always welcome under my roof. The companionship he has must be bitter to him, I fancy; they do say he would have had his officer's grade, and the cross, too, long before now, if it were not for his Colonel's hatred."

"Ah! I have seen him before now; he carves in ivory. I suppose he has a good side for those things with you?"

The Moor looked up in amazement.

"In ivory, madame?--he? Allah--il-Allah! I never heard of it. It is strange-----"

"Very strange. Doubtless you would have given him a good price for them?"

"Surely I would; any price he should have wished. Do I not owe him my life?"

At that moment little Musjid let fall a valuable coffee-tray, inlaid with amber; his master, with muttered apology, hastened to the scene of the accident; the noise startled Cecil, and his eyes unclosed to all the dreamy, fantastic colors of the place, and met those bent on him in musing pity--saw that l.u.s.trous, haughty, delicate head bending slightly down through the many-colored shadows.

He thought he was dreaming, yet on instinct he rose, staggering slightly, for sharp pain was still darting through his head and temples.

"Madame! Pardon me! Was I sleeping?"

"You were, and rest again. You look ill," she said gently, and there was, for a moment, less of that accent in her voice, which the night before had marked so distinctly, so pointedly, the line of demarcation between a Princess of Spain and a soldier of Africa.

"I thank you; I ail nothing."

He had no sense that he did, in the presence of that face which had the beauty of his old life; under the charm of that voice which had the music of his buried years.

"I fear that is scarcely true!" she answered him. "You look in pain; though as a soldier, perhaps, you will not own it?"

"A headache from the sun--no more, madame."

He was careful not again to forget the social gulf which yawned between them.

"That is quite bad enough! Your service must be severe?"

"In Africa, Milady, one cannot expect indulgence."

"I suppose not. You have served long?"

"Twelve years, madame."

"And your name?"

"Louis Victor." She fancied there was a slight abruptness in the reply, as though he were about to add some other name, and checked himself.

She entered it in the little book from which she had taken her banknotes.

"I may be able to serve you," she said, as she wrote. "I will speak of you to the Marshal; and when I return to Paris, I may have an opportunity to bring your name before the Emperor. He is as rapid as his uncle to reward military merit; but he has not his uncle's opportunities for personal observation of his soldiers."

The color flushed his forehead.

"You do me much honor," he said rapidly, "but if you would gratify me, madame, do not seek to do anything of the kind."

"And why? Do you not even desire the cross?"

"I desire nothing, except to be forgotten."

"You seek what others dread then?"

"It may be so. At any rate, if you would serve me, madame, never say what can bring me into notice."

She regarded him with much surprise, with some slight sense of annoyance; she had bent far in tendering her influence at the French court to a private soldier, and his rejection of it seemed as ungracious as it was inexplicable.

At that moment the Moor joined them.

"Milady has told me, M. Victor, that you are a first-rate carver of ivories. How is it that you have never let me benefit by your art?"

"My things are not worth a sou," muttered Cecil hurriedly.

"You do them great injustice, and yourself also," said the grande dame, more coldly than she had before spoken. "Your carvings are singularly perfect, and should bring you considerable returns."

"Why have you never shown them to me at least?" pursued Ben Arsli--"why not have given me my option?"

The blood flushed Cecil's face again; he turned to the Princess.

"I withheld them, madame, not because he would have underpriced, but overpriced them. He rates a trifling act of mine, of long ago, so unduly."

She bent her head in silence; yet a more graceful comprehension of his motive she could not have given than her glance alone gave.

Ben Arsli stroked his great beard; more moved than his Moslem dignity would show.

"Always so!" he muttered, "always so! My son, in some life before this, was not generosity your ruin?"

"Milady was about to purchase the lamp?" asked Cecil, avoiding the question. "Her Highness will not find anything like it in all Algiers."

The lamp was taken down, and the conversation turned from himself.