Part 48 (2/2)
She had felt happy in her self-sacrifice; she had grown into a gentle, pensive, merciful mood, singing here by the side of the dying soldier, and now the first thing she heard was of the charities of Mme. la Princesse!
That was all her reward! Cigarette received the recompense that usually comes to generous natures which have strung themselves to some self-surrender that costs them dear.
Cecil looked at her surprised, and smiled.
”Ma belle, is it you? That is, indeed, good. You were the good angel of my life the other night, and to-day come to bring consolation to my friend--”
”Good angel! Chut, M. Victor! One does not know those mots sucres in Algiers. There is nothing of the angel about me, I hope. Your friend, too! Do you think I have never been used to taking care of my comrades in hospital before you played the sick-nurse here?”
She spoke with all her brusque petulance in arms again; she hated that he should imagine she had sacrificed her fete-day to Leon Ramon, because the artist-trooper was dear to him; she hated him to suppose that she had waited there all the hours through on the chance that he would find her at her post, and admire her for her charity. Cigarette was far too proud and disdainful a young soldier to seek either his presence or his praise.
He smiled again; he did not understand the caprices of her changeful moods, and he did not feel that interest in her which would have made him divine the threads of their vagaries.
”I did not think to offend you, my little one,” he said gently. ”I meant only to thank you for your goodness to Ramon in my absence.”
Cigarette shrugged her shoulders.
”There was no goodness, and there need be no thanks. Ask Pere Matou how often I have sat with him hours through.”
”But on a fete-day! And you who love pleasure, and grace it so well--”
”Ouf! I have had so much of it,” said the little one contemptuously. ”It is so tame to me. Clouds of dust, scurry of horses, fanfare of trumpets, thunder of drums, and all for nothing! Bah! I have been in a dozen battles--I--and I am not likely to care much for a sham fight.”
”Nay, she is unjust to herself,” murmured Leon Ramon. ”She gave up the fete to do this mercy--it has been a great one. She is more generous than she will ever allow. Here, Cigarette, look at these scarlet rosebuds; they are like your bright cheeks. Will you have them? I have nothing else to give.”
”Rosebuds!” echoed Cigarette, with supreme scorn. ”Rosebuds for me? I know no rose but the red of the tricolor; and I could not tell a weed from a flower. Besides, I told Miou-Matou just now, if my children do as I tell them, they will not take a leaf or a peach-stone from this grande dame--how does she call herself?--Mme. Corona d'Amague!”
Cecil looked up quickly: ”Why not?”
Cigarette flashed on him her brilliant, brown eyes with a fire that amazed him.
”Because we are soldiers, not paupers!”
”Surely; but--”
”And it is not for the silver pheasants, who have done nothing to deserve their life but lain in nests of cotton wool, and eaten grain that others sow and sh.e.l.l for them, and spread their s.h.i.+ning plumage in a sun that never clouds above their heads, to insult, with the insolence of their 'pity' and their 'charity,' the heroes of France, who perish as they have lived, for their Country and their Flag!”
It was a superb peroration! If the hapless flowers lying there had been a cartel of outrage to the concrete majesty of the French Army, the Army's champion could not have spoken with more impa.s.sioned force and scorn.
Cecil laughed slightly; but he answered, with a certain annoyance:
”There is no 'insolence' here; no question of it. Mme. la Princesse desired to offer some gift to the soldiers of Algiers; I suggested to her that to increase the scant comforts of the hospital, and gladden the weary eyes of sick men with beauties that the Executive never dreams of bestowing, would be the most merciful and acceptable mode of exercising her kindness. If blame there be in the matter, it is mine.”
In defending the generosity of what he knew to be a genuine and sincere wish to gratify his comrades, he betrayed what he did not intend to have revealed, namely, the conversation that had pa.s.sed between himself and the Spanish Princesse. Cigarette caught at the inference with the quickness of her lightning-like thought.
”Oh, ha! So it is she!”
There was a whole world of emphasis, scorn, meaning, wrath, comprehension, and irony in the four monosyllables; the dying man looked at her with languid wonder.
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