sergeant,” he murmured, “and why shouldn’t I, in this new country––”

“Mironton, mironton, mirontaine,” she sang, and smiled on him.

His eyes flashed, and because of the voice his heart quickened. He had heard of “this new country.” It was “a gold mine in a bed of roses,” but with a thorn, to say nothing of a bayonet, for every bud, and like many another young Frenchman he hoped to win renown in the romantic Mexican Empire, sprung like Minerva from the brain of his own emperor. And now here was a girl humming the war song of his fathers and of his race, and flaunting his warrior’s ambition in it.

Having thus ousted the crusading hero of the song, and put the slang for “sergeant” in his stead, Jacqueline leaned back on the gunwale quite contented. She fell to gazing on the transparent emerald of the inshore, and plunged in her hand. The soft, plump wrist turned baby pink under the riffles. Of a sudden Berthe her maid half screamed, whereat with a delighted little gasp of fright, she jerked out the hand. But she put it back again, to tempt the watchful shark out there.

“My grandfather was only a duke,” she mused aloud, very humbly. But she peeped up at Ney in the most exasperating manner. He could just see the gray eyes behind the edge of lace that fell from the slanting brim of her hat. He would not, though, meet the challenge. He kept to sincerity as the safer ground.

8“Like mine, mademoiselle, yours made himself one, under Napoleon.”

“The great Napoleon,” she corrected him gently.

Michel assented with a sad little nod. Then he raised his head bravely. “And why not do things without a great Napoleon, and, after all, isn’t he a Napoleon, and one who––”

“Is lucky enough to bear a name that means seven million votes. I should rather be a ‘sergeant’ and congratulate none but myself on it, Monsieur the–Duke.”

Again, with the wisdom of a slow intelligence, the Chasseur held back from her subtleties. If only he might betray her into frankness–a compliment she paid to few men and to a woman never–then, just possibly, he might make her tractable as to their prompt return to the ship.

“Still, it is a name to rally to,” he persisted, acknowledging in spite of himself the magic that had swayed the Old Guard.

For once she left the poor shark in peace.

“A name, a name?” she repeated.

“Isn’t ‘France’ enough of a name for your rallying, monsieur?”

But the honest mood could not last. In the same breath she hastened on, “Yes, yes, France, the beloved of us proud grandchildren of original dukes. Of myself, sir, with a château in the Bourbonnais, whose floors are as well watered as the vineyards outside. And your France too, Michel, giving you only your clean linen to disguise the sergeant and remind us of the marshal of the First Empire. Of course,” she added kindly, “there is the bravery. I had forgotten that, O grandson of the ‘brave des braves.’ But then?–Bonté divine, there’s no rank in courage, mon ami! It’s not the epaulette of a French uniform–it’s the merest lining.”

“And that,” the youth cried doggedly, “is still enough to––”

“To do things for France, eh petit piou-piou?”

9“Hélas! our France can’t expect much from me. But you, mademoiselle, you will do things for her!” It was a spontaneous tribute, just that, without thought of prying into the secret of her mission, “While I,” he ended